Logic

I haven't crucified anyone. I'm a fan of Brandon Beane's, and I could make a big, long post talking about all the great things he's done here. I'm glad he's the GM of the Bills and, for the time being, I'm glad he's gonna continue to be the GM of the Buffalo Bills. There's a culture around sports teams sometimes that if you question or criticize ANYTHING a GM or coach does, you must be some kind of "hater". I am very clearly NOT that. I'm one of the most optimistic Bills fans you'll ever meet, and I like both our GM and our head coach. It's okay to have differences of opinion with some of the moves that a general manager makes. It doesn't mean it's a crucifixion. As for the second bolded line: Again, that's my argument. He's done just about everything else -- short of bringing in much elite talent the past five years -- that you could ask for. That's my whole point. Brandon Beane does literally everything OTHER than draft difference makers for this team. That's why I continue to believe he's a very good GM, and that's also why I believe it will continue to be hard to get over the hump and win a title. He's got to find a way to bring another elite player or two. If he doesn't, I foresee many divisional round playoff exits to come.

Nope. Not interested. For one thing, we already filled the "Move WR who can line up at running back" role with a cheaper, faster Samuel. We don't need two of those types of players. His skillset would be redundant with Curtis Samuel. For another, I'm not interested in committing the money to Deebo Samuel that he would likely command. And finally, I don't think he adds the one thing that the Bills WR corps still seems to lack: Speed/explosiveness. It's a no from me, dawg.

A lot of really outstanding replies today. Wow. @MrEpsYtown @BillsVet @Cash @Beck Water et al, Thank you all. Each of you made at least one point, if not several, that I found really interesting and gave me something to chew on. I feel after this latest batch of replies like this thread represents the best of this message board. Lots of really high level discussion. We disagree on some points, but we're doing so in a way that is civil, and the discourse around it hopefully expands each of our viewpoints a little bit and allows us to consider things from a new angle. Great stuff from everyone. Thank you all for taking the time and expounding your thoughts.

As someone who -- as I have stated several times in several threads -- didn't love this draft class and feel that the front office seems to have failed what I viewed as its biggest mission this offseason... I have to say that I don't think this year can "break" McDermott and Beane, in terms of their being fired or on the hot seat or whatever. After jettisoning all the veterans they did and admitting publicly it's a "transition" year, I think that even a regression and even -- though I don't think it'll happen -- missing the playoffs wouldn't result in Beane or McDermott being ousted. I think they're viewing 2025 as the year to complete this re-tooling and TRULY compete for a championship again. The cap space that's opened up, the plethora of draft picks. If the Bills don't make a serious run at a title in 2025, THEN I think whispers about their job security will get very loud.

In the most polite way I can possibly say this...and there's probably NOT a polite way... I was trying to pick between Shakir's wife and Bernard's wife and I just couldn't.

Good. For one thing, Esiason and Simms are basically interchangeable to me. I'm not convinced they're not the same person. If you moved them both around a bunch in front of me like Three Card Monte, and then asked me to identify who was who for $1,000 , I couldn't do it. I'd argue the network barely needed one of them, but certainly didn't need both. Their pre-game show had really begun to feel old, cranky, outdated, and lacking in excitement and personality. If the Bills are getting younger and re-tooling, then by God, CBS can do it too!

I only buy the "drafting late makes it hard to find difference makers" argument to an extent, particularly when Brandon Beane moves around the draft board as much as he does. The Eagles, for instance, always seem to be picking pretty late in the draft, but I would rank their roster as considerably better than Buffalo's, and their drafts as usually superior. As for the middle sentence that I bolded: That's exactly my point. That's what Beane does. His drafts typically get us players that "add to the team's quality of depth and gives us a few starters hopefully". What he has NOT done nearly often enough the past few years, is get anything BEYOND that. Anybody who is among the elite at their position or gets All-Pro votes. Beane is consistently good at getting consistently good players. My contention is that he has not gotten any GREAT ones in the past five years, and we need one or two of those on our roster to have a hope of ever getting past the Chiefs on a consistent basis.

Thanks. I agree that the three players you mentioned from the 2023 draft look good, and that it's too early to definitively state that any of them won't be stars. Cook looks good, too, but seems to be about the 10th best running back in football. Taron Jonson and Ed Oliver are good players, no doubt. But they have a combined zero All-Pro seasons and zero Pro Bowl nods. Johnson made a huge play in the Ravens playoff game in 2020, but in the three years since, neither guys have affected our playoff fortunes much. Even if I grant that Taron Johnson is VERY good, that was still the 2018 draft, and I was asking about the five (now six, actually) drafts since then. Just for the sake of argument, let's assume that Dalton Kincaid and James Cook become perennial Pro Bowlers. That still means that in the five drafts between 2019 and 2023, Beane found two true standout players. And that's if the assumption even comes to fruition. I'm simply saying that he's a guy who consistently has good drafts and drafts good players, but he rarely has GREAT drafts where he drafts GREAT players. As for Coleman's ceiling, it's not exactly an objective reality. It's more of a subjective opinion that differs from person to person. If you believe his ceiling is as an alpha WR1, then I don't begrudge you that opinion. My opinion is that his ceiling is Tee Higgins or Mike Williams.

I ask you, since you eyeroll'd my post: In the five drafts since Josh Allen became a Buffalo Bill, can you identify any difference makers or All-Pros that Brandon Beane has drafted? I don't mean good players that start NFL games. I already conceded that he does a nice job at finding those. I'm talking elite players. Difference makers. Can you name any? Mind you: I like Brandon Beane, have always defended him, and don't want him fired or anything like that. I'm happy with him as GM of the Buffalo Bills. But that doesn't mean I can't identify things that seem like problems to me (like failure to draft difference makers) or level fair critiques. And his inability to draft difference makers, to me, has been disappointing, and merits discussion.

Promising of what, exactly? If it's promise of making the roster and getting playing time and contributing on some level, then I agree. If it's promise of becoming an elite player, I don't see much of that in this class. I very much hope to be proven wrong, but Keon Coleman looks to me like his ceiling is as a high end WR2. Maybe Cole Bishop becomes a playmaking safety. Maybe Soloman is a steal at Edge and becomes a sack master. But when I look at Ray Davis, DeWayne Carter, a center, a couple project tackles, a special teams linebacker, and an undersized punt returner, I see what look like fine-to-good, sort of replacement level players. I see more of what Beane has done in the past: solid drafts that produce rosterable players, but no difference makers. He arguably hasn't found a difference maker in the draft since Josh Allen. Lots of good, steady, NFL caliber players. Few stars. The norm for drafts under Brandon Beane (ever since the Allen/Edmunds draft) has become "solid to good, but never great". No home runs. No All-Pros. No REAL difference makers. Right now, this draft just looks like the latest chapter in that book.

You pretty much said in one sentence what I tried to get across in my long OP. "I'm not excited about it, but it looks solid". I think that's also the answer to your question that preceded it. Given how important this draft class was and how many picks the Bills had, not to mention the opportunity they had for a sort of "soft reset", I hoped they'd swing for the fences a little more. I would've been okay with them drafting less players overall, but picking higher on a few occasions. I realize they picked late in the rounds, but I don't think that needs to be so prohibitive when you have the capital and creativity to move around the board. The Eagles also picked late, for instance, and I felt they had a really dynamite draft. Ultimately, I wanted this to be a "let's really focus on surrounding Josh with talent" draft or a "let's try to find a future star or two" draft, even if it meant taking some risks with current and future capital. Instead, it seems like they felt it was more of a foundational, "setting the table" sort of draft to re-stock the cupboards with things like defensive depth and special teams assets. Solid, but not exciting.

Generally speaking, I agree. If they had taken a speedy WR in the middle rounds and one more bite at the offensive skill position apple late, I also would've felt much better about things.

Correction, he said "at the beginning of the season", not "in year one", which I concede is a huge difference. Nevertheless, it likely means a few weeks of Mack Hollins as starter.

I'm sorry to keep bringing it up, but... If you had told me before the offseason got under way that our week one 2024 starting lineup at WR would be Curtis Samuel, Mack Hollins, and Khalil Shakir, with Keon Coleman coming off the bench, I probably would have tried to fight you. On paper, we have one of the worst 5 WR corps in the league.

Yeah. Apparently Beane said Coleman "will have a hard time starting in year 1". Something to that affect. So Samuel/Hollins/Shakir seems to be the opening day plan (save me the "Shaver or Shorter or Hamler are gonna surprise everyone and win a starting spot!" hopium), which is just...unfathomably depressing. I was so strongly hoping that the Bills would find a way to get better in the WR room this offseason, and they somehow appear to have gotten markedly worse. And then Beane has the gall to say "let's don't forget that we have good tight ends that we can throw to!". I need a drink.

Now that's interesting. Taking the same positions but going with Brugler's BPAs instead. Awesome. Love it. Totally fair point. In my original (pre-edit) version of this post, I mentioned within the first couple paragraphs that it was an inherently unfair exercise, because we have knowledge of where players ultimately wound up getting drafted which we can use to formulate the "ideal" draft board. Beane, of course, did not have this information, or his draft my have gone differently. I also agree that in future years, it makes more sense to do it right after each pick. I just wonder if, in the chaos of the actual draft still being in progress, anyone would take the time to play along. And you're right, by the way. I probably WOULD have picked Franklin at 60. I was much higher on him than NFL GMs were (as were many other people, it seems). I guess that's why I'm just a message board goofball and not an NFL GM.

Thanks to all the posters so far who took this thread in the spirit of fun in which it was intended and contributed your alternate draft. Fascinating to read everyone's preferences.

Fair enough. That's fine. Maybe you're right. Maybe it would've been better during the draft. Seeing as its not gaining traction the way I had hoped, maybe I'll try that instead next year. I mostly just thought the "LAMP" response was unwarranted, because it was meant to be a participatory thing for everyone, just for fun.

Absolutely. Yes. Yep. I want other people to participate by adding their own alternate draft class. It is not meant to be a "me" thing. I thought it would be a fun game for the draftniks on the board. Like a mock draft in reverse.

Beane specifically said today that they won't be trading for a WR. He outright said it's not happening. So that's out the window. As for free agents -- sure, yeah, I've conceded that IF they sign one, then that changes things. But there's no indication that's happening any time soon. When asked in his presser today, Beane said their WR room is in "good shape" and "we like the guys we have". He cited Shavers, Shorter, and Hamler. If they go out and sign Tyler Boyd or OBJ tomorrow, then sure, it makes the draft look a bit different in retrospect. But had they simply used one of their ELEVEN draft picks to take one, that wouldn't even be necessary. They got TWO offensive tackles. They got a PUNT RETURNER. They used a draft pick on a rugby player that has never played a down of football in his life. But no second WR. Nothing anyone can say to me will make that make any more sense to me.

Respectfully, what does that have to do with anything? Beane specifically said today that they will not be trading for a WR. Not "maybe", not "I never say no to anything". He said "the cap is the cap. There is no trade for a WR coming, nothing like that". He said they're happy with the WR room and they're in "pretty good shape" there.

My contention is that you need DEPTH in the NFL. That 3 viable WRs is not enough. That one injury will have us depending on Mack Hollins or Justin Shorter for offensive production, and that that's a bad position to be in for a team with a franchise QB in his prime. My contention is that one of the ways to address this issue would have been to spend a 2nd or 3rd day pick on another wide receiver. The draft is a crapshoot, and the more darts you throw at the WR position, the greater the chance that one of the guys you picks turns out to be a good player. Instead, the Bills threw just ONE dart, and if he doesn't come out swinging as a rookie, the Bills WR corps will be woeful.

If only we had one!

Nah. Beane went into a very deep WR draft armed with 11 picks. He had so many that he traded one away for a 2025 pick instead. He came out of the weekend with just one wide receiver prospect. He managed to add TWO offensive tackles, spend 4th round capital on a running back, and add a special teams linebacker and a punt returner...but he couldn't bring himself to take more than one bite at the apple at the biggest need position on the roster. Diggs may have set things in motion, but Beane had ample opportunity to do more to address the wide receiver position this weekend and chose not to.

Respectfully, a transition/retool/rebuild year seems like the PERFECT time to add a few rookie WRs. It's historically a position that takes a year or two to get up to speed. So why not draft more than ONE wide receiver when you have a screaming need at the position, 11 draft picks, and a deep WR draft class? Let them get their feet wet in this "transition year" and from 2025 onward, we're off and running. I don't see why having a transition year and meaningfully addressing your biggest roster hole with more than one player should have to be mutually exclusive.