Rigotz

I think we have to break this into three position groups: Safety: Micah Hyde - Free agent, going on 34, nagging injuries and lost a step. Gone. Jordan Poyer - Cutting saves $5.5M. $2M dead cap. Gone. Rapp - Free agent - Gone. Hamlin - Last year of cheap contract. Maaaaaybe practice squad, otherwise gone. Need 2 new starters and maybe 2 backups. Slot Corner: 1) Taron Johnson - last year of extension, due $12M. I bet we extend him. Need depth, maybe in late rounds? Outside Corner: 1) Christian Benford - Solid 1/2 and under contract 2 more years. Injury concerns. 2) Rasul Douglas - Rock solid 2 and under contract for next year. No reason to extend yet. 3) Kaiir Elam - This is the upside guy you groom behind 1 and 2. No reason to cut or trade. 4) Dane Jackson - Meh. Expired contract, would welcome him back on vet min for depth. 5) Tre White - cut or ideally injury settlement. Love you Tre. Need injury insurance for Benford and ideally a stronger #1 corner. Is Elam that guy? Thus, safety is the big need. Corner depth and hopefully upside can be found in late rounds. To those suggesting we cut Kaiir Elam... why? He has raw talent and is on a relatively cheap contract. It's an $8M dead cap hit to cut him and $3.7M to keep him on the roster next year. Why the hell would you pay double to not have him?

Still too early, but I do want to point out that not all games are created equal. Green = Top 10 defense Yellow = 10-22 defense Red = Bottom 10 defense Dorsey: Jets: Defensive DVOA Rank: 3rd ... 16 points scored Raiders: Defensive Rank: 16th ... 38 points Commanders: Defensive Rank: 32nd ... 37 points Dolphins: Defensive Rank: 11th ... 48 points Jaguars: Defensive Rank: 8th ... 20 points Giants: Defensive Rank: 25th ... 14 points Patriots: Defensive Rank: 10th ... 25 points Buccaneers: Defensive Rank: 17th ... 24 points Bengals: Defensive Rank: 26th ... 18 points Broncos: Defensive Rank: 30th ... 22 points Brady: Jets: Defensive DVOA Rank: 3rd ... 32 points Eagles: Defensive Rank: 20th ... 37 points Cheifs: Defensive Rank: 9th ... 20 points Dorsey had some horrible offensive games against bad defensive teams. Eagles aren't bad. Joe Brady hasn't, but again ... too early. I like what I've seen thus far.

On the topic of McDermott addressing this article publicly and saying it's an "attack on his character" ... I have a different take. The Bills have their backs against the wall. They already have an "us vs the world" mentality. What if their coach is trying to lean into this and get even more juice out of the "us vs the world" narrative? It would make sense, tactically.

I had this conversation with my buddies yesterday, who are Pats fans. The Patriots have the toughest Strength of Schedule in the league. That's the tiebreaker for draft position. There are 5 other teams that have 4 wins. The Patriots now have 3 wins. That means if Bill wins another one, you're potentially picking outside of the top 5. I appreciate the positivity and am not trying to be a hater here, but this is new territory for a lot of Pats fans ... the win last night was potentially catastrophic for you guys. We did this for 20 years and those wins often find a way to crush your draft stock late-season.

Seems like a lot of people are getting upset about the comparison of Araiza and Miller. Nobody is comparing the events themselves, the alleged victims, or the players. What I'm saying is a lot of us jumped to conclusions the moment we heard a news story with partial facts about Araiza. That story is remembered differently now. Perhaps we can benefit from the learning moment that we do not know all the facts yet and shouldn't assume Von Miller is a horrific person, the same way we did with Matt Araiza.

The commentary on Von stood out to me, toward the beginning. Sounds like Beane & the Front Office are confident that Von will not be charged with any crime and this could potentially be a misunderstanding. Maybe we should be cautious this time around (ex: Araiza) and let things play out before crucifying Von...

In 2020 Beane drafted Jake Fromm, the developmental QB, in the 5th round. It was a wasted pick. That same year we got Tyler Bass in the 6th round, Dane Jackson in the 7th, and Isaiah Hodgins in the 6th. In 2022, we got Christian Benford in the 5th, Khalil Shakir in the 5th, and Matt Araiza in the 6th. There are 20+ other teams looking for a QB with any type of talent. We will need to spend a premium pick to get one in the draft. I'd rather have the guys above than take a 10% shot on maybe having a decent, young backup QB instead of a proven vet.

What if I told you ... In the year that the Chiefs look worse than ever, Joe Burrow gets injured, Aaron Rodgers gets injured, and the Patriots are a joke... The Bills respond by going 6-6 and standing in 10th place in the AFC, currently outpaced by the Browns, Steelers, and Colts, all of which are using backup QBs.

They do several per year, including Beane. You’ve really never seen one?

And we're likely to receive a 3rd round comp pick as well

Amidst all the negativity this season, I want to bump this thread one last time. We found a true impact guy in the third round last year. The talking heads hated the pick. We hated the pick. Everyone was wrong. Terrel Bernard through 12 games this year: 104 tackles 3 interceptions 3.5 sacks Tremaine Edmunds through 5 years as a starter (full season averages): 113 tackles / yr 1 interception / yr 1.3 sacks / yr It's not just about the splash plays either. His run fits and pass coverage have been beautiful. Exciting to think about him and Milano paired for the next several years.

Yes, but it could be worse. Dolphins rest their starters because it's a meaningless game for them... and we still lose. 2003 all over again.

Yup. This is the one. Any suggestion of cutting Dion Dawkins rather than simply restructuring elite players is ridiculous. Right idea from @Einstein but wrong execution.

Von on the possibility of missing games because of this: Zero percent chance. I'll be back to full strength by tomorrow.

If our offense is #1 in the league and our defense is #32, one might consider something like this. Otherwise, it's reckless and stupid. If you miss the conversion, which has a historical 50% win rate, now the Eagles can win the game simply by kicking a field goal. If you make the conversion, the Eagles have to score a touchdown to win. You would have to have extremely little faith in your defense and extremely strong faith in your offense to do this. The analytics say DO NOT do it.

What would you rather have at this point? Option 1) The Bills win 4 out of the next 5 games and sneak into the playoffs. They have to play the #2 seed on the road and lose. McDermott gets to say he gutted out a tough season with many injuries and he survives another year. The Bills hold the 20th-24th pick in the draft. Option 2) The Bills lose 2+ games and miss the playoffs. The season is a failure and McDermott is fired. The Bills hold the 15th-20th pick in the draft. Many of us would choose option 2 simply because we can't imagine a scenario where McDermott's team not only guts out 4-5 more wins in a row, but then goes on the road for the entirety of the playoffs, then Super Bowl and wins it all.

Bill Belichick's resume was NOT better than McDermott's before Brady. Assuming Reich's coaching stinks because he's not winning Super Bowls with Jacoby Brissett is extremely short-sighted. He made some really bad QB's look good. I'm not sold on him being the wrong guy.

I love when the broadcast highlights that he's on the field. It's appropriately embarrassing for both him and the coaching staff that they keep trotting out the ghost of Von Miller to the field. Every snap he's been out there has been a wasted snap. Think about how many times the coaching staff has put a zero impact player on the field at a critical position ... by choice. Yet another reason to be DONE with McDermott.

I understand we all have our pitchforks out right now, but Beane has been fantastic as a GM. His draft hit rate is above average. His creativity with the cap is above average. His trades have been mostly good. How do we go from "Beane is a wizard!" every off-season to saying he's a problem?

Thankfully, it would be Beane replacing him moreso than Pegula.

My problem is not necessarily the kneeling with 20 seconds as much as it is blowing two time outs before doing that. Blow a time out with 30 seconds left before the third down play… ok. Blow another time out with 25 seconds left to… ice the kicker? THEN KNEEL? Pathetic.

Perhaps because the Dolphins were loading the box all game and daring the Jets to try to pass?

You have over a thousand posts on an NFL team's message board... and you're upset that people are voicing their opinions and guessing on what's happening inside the organization? I'm sure everyone appreciates the sage wisdom of "things are good when you win" but the whole point of a message board is to speculate and discuss.

I'm going to defend McDermott for a moment. Brace yourself. Maybe Dorsey was indeed the problem. Are any of you managers at work? Imagine if something didn't go right and your reaction was this: How would the people under you react? Yes, of course Football is an intense game... but wouldn't it be a little less fun? I wonder if Dorsey didn't know how to channel Josh's energy and keep it positive during games. His own competitiveness got in the way. Dorsey might be a great coach, but maybe he just wasn't the right pairing with Josh?

Well... yeah. We sucked for 20 years. Usually coaches don't last more than 3 years when they suck.