Shaw66

Thanks. That's a really great observation. That's a perfect example. Speed and decisiveness. Disguise, speed and decisiveness. And mental processing. Hyde, Poyer, White, Johnson, Milano, Edmunds all read and react and make plays. And now they're adding Elam, who clearly has the speed and decisiveness, and there's evidence he has the smarts to learn the nuances and become part of a team of guys in the defensive backfield. And Bernard, who might become the leader of it all. Pretty awesome vision.

All of that. Beane and McDermott are looking for guys like that. Focused on what needs to be done. Bernard is like that. And Shakir. And I think Cook is, too, but Cook isn't vocal about it. When asked how he learned to catch and not fumble, he just said, "Work. You gotta put in the work. Lose the ball, you don't play." He's a guy who's focused on getting better.

I think this is an interesting point. I'm realizing that I'm getting excited about the Bills prospects this season. We've been watching this team get better and better, and now we're watching in the process of getting better again. This is the kind of culture and success that McDermott talked about when he first came to Buffalo. He said this is what he was going to do. One of the things they've done to get better is what you say about Elam. They had a number 1 defense, and it was limited, so the Bills went to work to fix that limitation. Beane found a way to get to Elam. The offense needed speed, and it needed to attack in new ways. Instead of going after a receiver, who only could compete for time with Diggs and Davis, they got a running back can be a threat in ADDITION to what they already can do. This is an organization that is making itself better, intelligently, year after year.

Hey, I gotta say that this is a great observation. We just watched Beane for the past three or four days, and he showed how the organization is reacting to the 13 seconds. Beane killed it - he worked his butt off, and was creative, to get guys who should make a difference. If Beane reacted to the 13 seconds, how do you think McDermott is doing? He's been working for a couple of months already, demanding of himself that the team will get better. Coaching changes designed to get better. This organization is being driven forward by a desire to succeed that got a jolt when they let that game go. If Beane was cranked up the way he was, you can be sure that McDermott is that way and more. And the coaches and the players all are motivated that way. This team could end up being scary good.

Well, I'm surprised you haven't gotten used to it. It isn't Dick Jauron's fascination with the tweeners; it's McDermotts. The Bills did nothing much in 2020 to muscle up against the best running games, and they didn't again in 2021. Unless and until power running games become the dominant offense in the NFL, McDermott is going to go small and quick. It's obvious that's his preference. I get the logic. Small and quick has a chance against the power game, but big never has a chance against quick. One thing that has surprised me is how good the Bills are in goal line situations. Teams bulk up and bring in extra tackles and all that, and McDermott's little guys make a lot of stops. Comments in this thread have convinced me that McDermott wants to play with Bernard as the third linebacker on the field. I always wanted Klein in on running situations, to ge his muscle to work. Turns out, McDermott wanted to get rid of Klein and put more speed on the field.

Actually, Shakir's 40 time is just slightly better than Stevenson, but Stevenson last year had the best three-cone time in history, so he has the edge on quickness. Like you, I don't know that I ever saw it. I just keep saying that there's plenty of opportunity for rookies to grow in their first full off-season. That's the one thing Stevenson has going for him.

I agree that Stevenson didn't show a lot. And for me, I was pretty much done with him after he fumbled on a return. He was out there only because the Bills had lost confidence in McKenzie, and still he wasn't able to focus on holding onto the ball. It's not fatal, but it certainly didn't help. I said in this thread or elsewhere that Stevenson may benefit by a second year in more normal OTAs and training camp, but I'm guessing that Shakir is likely to take his job. Stevenson may have him marginally on speed and quickness, but Shakir is going to win on brains, effectiveness, and consistency. Just my take. As Logic says, if he wins the punt returning job against Stevenson and McKenzie, he'll be on the active roster, and he'll get occasional reps on the offense as he earns them throughout the season. If he wins the punt returning job, Stevenson likely is toast. Or, more likely, he gets poached off the practice squad.

Well, I didn't watch them all morning, but I watched some in the past few days, and I get the lack of explosiveness part. It looks to me like he doesn't get his top end speed quickly. I kept looking at his 40 time and looking at the video, and I couldn't put the two together. You know how they say some guys have football speed, they play faster than they time? I concluded that Shakir is a bit of the opposite. I'm not sure it matters all that much. He looks plenty fast enough to me to be a legitimate deep threat. I've been in and out of this thread, and what has me excited is his intelligence and apparent extreme coachability. If that's who he is, then he should play, because receivers generally get open on smarts and precise route running, not blazing speed. Shakir-Elam footraces in training camp should be fun. And throw in Cook.

Yeah, that came out of the blue. Beane said Moss is not at all out of the #2 running back picture, that he had difficulty throughout the year coming back from his ankle injury. That's a wow! As a rookie, Moss sometimes looked like he might take Singletary's job. They could have a three-way battle for playing time. Beane clearly trusted him. There's a lot of detail in there. I wouldn't be surprised if along the way Beane told Silver that some things he heard needed to stay out of the article.

And an important part of the process is that he's going to have Hyde, Poyer, White, and Johnson all talking to him. I heard McDermott talk about it once, early in his career here, and he was essentially talking about what happened at the Patriots all those years. Although the coaches all tell you every year is a new year, and they start the install from ground zero every year, but the reality is the defensive backfield will be working at a pretty high level almost from day one. Somehow, by guys talking and by osmosis, the youngsters get drawn up to the level of the veterans, and the better rookies fit in pretty quickly. That is, unless they're stupid, but Beane generally seems to be doing a good job screening out the guys who aren't smart enough or coachable enough. He's getting learners, which is what McDermott wants. My target is November-December. I want White back at full speed by then, and Elam fully integrated. He'll still be making mistakes here and there by then, but if it works correctly, by the time they hit the playoffs, Frazier and McDermott should have an incredibly talented and versatile defensive backfield. And if Bernard actually can play, there are going to be defenders flying to the ball all over the field. And #40. My, my. Who'd have thought that #40 would show up?

The brain is a remarkable device. I think that note taking isn't just to have information on a guy the next time he sees him. The act of the note taking keeps the subjects top of mind, so when he's playing, he's naturally thinking about preventing those things that go wrong. I was amazed at the video. He looks almost like a dance partner following the receiver's lead. And on top of that, both his speed and his length allow him to recover from the instantaneous advantage the receiver gets on the cut. He's terrifically focused on what's happening, and he reacts quickly. I was trying not to get too excited watching him, but he looks like he's a better pure cover corner than Tre. If he is, McDermott will have his dream lineup: "You four guys up front, go get the QB. Tre and Elam, you blanket the two wideouts. You other five guys, run around, wreak havoc, and get the ball."

Great read. Thanks.

Yeah, you put it all together, and it seems extremely unlikely that this guy is going to be anything but solid from the get go and get better after that.

Pretty good assessment. The handchecking and PI will get cleaned up. He was just playing as aggressively as the game would permit. Excellent in man. Correct about how he reacts to fakes. Some reports question his tackling, and maybe he's inconsistent, but he attacked the ball carrier aggressively on several of these highlights. It isn't like he can't do it.

Dad enough that you're sitting in the room with 12-15 40-year old guys hanging on every word, but the the whole thing is being filmed, so they watch it lately to be sure that he's scratching himself with his right hand instead of his left. What a job interview!

Right, we don't know. However, based on how important he said it was to him to get a corner, I'd guess that he would have traded down if he could find a trade partner. He clearly wasn't in a hurry to add a receiver - he waited through the fourth round, and he likely would have valued the extra draft capital.

No pun intended, but let's back up a second here. When you have a relatively loaded roster, which the Bills have - some true stars and plenty of above average starters, there's always going to be what looks like a big drop off in depth. The guys who would look like decent backups for Poyer and Hyde, for example, are guys who are good enough to starters on rebuilding teams. They don't want to be backups when they can start, and they can get paid more starting somewhere. Every team wants offensive linemen, starters and backups. Why take backup money in Buffalo when you can get starter money someplace else? Plus, good teams like the Bills have a lot of money wrapped up in their QBs, and if they're lucky, they've committed money to a Diggs and a Miller. So, the Bills just don't have the luxury of having overpriced backups sitting around. Finally, if the only problem worth talking about in Buffalo is the quality of the backups, that means there's a lot stuff to be happy about.

This states the receiving part of the equation really well. Patrick DiMarco, or even Devin Singletary. Cook looks like a true receiver. And I think the flip side is equally true. He's a true running back. When he lines up in the backfield, it's different from putting McKenzie back there and asking him to make plays. I think the Bills really wanted Cook, and I'm a little surprised they traded back twice before taking him.

That's a fair analysis. Thanks. The good news is that the Bills punt so little that a bad punter can't hurt them too much. And I agree about the coachable athlete part. If that's who he is, then the Bills will live with a season while he refines his game.

Cook should be a major weapon. Basic offense is Diggs, Davis, Crowder (or Shakir), Knox, and Singletary. That's a great collection of weapons, and Josh had no trouble finding them last season. That doesn't even include McKenzie. Now, throw Cook into the mix, lining up in the backfield, taking the handoff one play and motioning wide on the next, catching bubble screens, running jet sweeps. The versatility he will bring to the offense is exactly the weapon Josh needed.

Agreed, if he pans out. He's the kind of guy that playoff contenders can afford to draft in the second round. If you're coming off several 6-10 to 8-8 seasons, you're taking a bread-and-butter guy you need to be a full-time starter soon. If you're a contender with a good offense, you're looking for a guy who can add a little juice. And the guy is available precisely because so many other teams can't afford to be buying juice when they need bread.

Well, when I heard Beane talking about it, he seemed to imply that if he had stayed at 25 and not traded up, and if Elam had been taken before Beane got him, Beane would not have reached. He would have traded down (but it didn't sound like he had any favorable trades in the works), or he would have taken his BPA. I inferred that because he was pretty clear that his path through the draft was going to be much more difficult if he didn't get a first-round corner. It sounds to me like Beane did his job. He calculated that at least one first-round corner would fall to #20, ideally two, and from there he'd do what was necessary to get one. If his calculation had been wrong, he would have been stuck. His job is to get the calculation correct. Of course, Elam has to actually be good at his position but frankly, I have a lot of confidence in the approach that McBeane take. They only take guys with the work ethic, the competitiveness, and the team orientation to succeed. Elam seems to have that. He clearly has the physical characteristics of a starting corner. He survived, even excelled, in a tough conference against guys who are graduating to the NFL. I think it's a high probability he'll be full-time starter by November, if not September.

Watching his video, that's what I think, too. But someone said if you watch Dalvin in college, he looks a lot like James. So, we'll see. If the Bills just drafted Dalvin Cook in the second round (after trading down twice!), Beane is the GM of the decade. I think the Bills just got a really good #2 back who could possibly become a #1.

I don't think he's such a slam dunk. Beane said he'll have to win the job, and he also said Haack is better than the fans think and better than he played last season. I think the situation is similar to when Bass arrived. The Bills had just resigned that guy who had kicked for Seattle, and we were all happy with him. Bass came in and showed that he already was as good, although he didn't have much experience in the clutch. He was a small gamble in that regard, but it was a risk clearly worth taking. The Bills are going to have no way of knowing for sure whether Araiza will have consistency problems like Bojo did, and they'll have real concerns about whether Araiza can be a consistently good holder. The Bills will have to get comfortable on both fronts, as much as they can, in the summer. The question will be potential versus consistency, if Haack has a good camp. Araiza will have to show that he projects consistency; then his leg will win the day.

Wow. That's McDermott's kind of guy. I've wondered whether this guy actually is a punt returner. It looks from the stats like he did it only part time. But from the write-up, above, I'd day he's McDermott's punt returner. Why? Because that is the description of a guy who will keep the ball secure first, and then try to do something with it. We'll see what a year's experience does for Stevenson. He has to make a jump. I agree about his speed. However, Beane took him in the sixth or seventh and never talked about him as anything more than potential. He took Shakir at the top of the fifth and said he would have taken him in the fourth if he still had the pick. Then when I read the NFL.com paragraph, above, I conclude that Shakir already has the inside track.