Shaw66

This is a really good insight. I mean, think of it: They're bringing in this kid with all the talent in the world, a kid who is energetic and committed and competitive, and they surrounding him with four certifiable practitioners of the McDermott pass defense. He will be in OTAs and camp and preseason with Benford, White, Jackson, and Taron Johnson. They all will be showing him, teaching him. Hairston has the opportunity in the next three months to win the starting job outright, and all four of those guys are going to be helping him do it. Hairston couldn't have been put in a better situation to succeed, and the Bills may be the beneficiary really quickly.

Thanks for this. You've looked at a lot more tape than I have, obviously. Before I say more, let me congratulate you on your final draft analysis, for having come down to the conclusion that the Bills would be taking a corner at 30 and knowing who was on the short list. Nice job. I agree with your analysis. There's always the risk that a guy taken late in the first round just won't pan out, and we've seen that recently enough. I think that he that he probably will make it, and that he has some unusual upside. I think you are exactly right about this. If he's just number two to benford's number one, the pick will have been worth it. If he is a guy who makes people talk about Deion Sanders, the pick will be one of the best in Bills history. If he can be the kind of mental player that McDermott wants, McDermott will create multiple opportunities for Hairston to use his unique skill set. If that happens, a half dozen teams or more will wonder why they didn't take him earlier in the first round.

I have no idea what the Bills will do in in the second round. I would be happy if they could find a way to package some of their other picks to move up higher in the second round. But even if they stay where they are, the opportunity to add two second round talents to this team is a great thing. Hairston plus plus the two guys they can get tonight could be three starters by the end of this season, and that would mean the Bills have gotten a lot better in this draft. My choices would be a defender at almost any position and a running back. If the Bills found a quality running back in the second round, we could see Cook going in a a trade this summer which would allow Beane to add another pick in next years a draft.

I think the formula still works, however. If you have a front four that can get to the quarterback, if they can win and generate pressure, then the defense can begin to pull the back seven up tighter on the line of scrimmage and create more risk on the quick throws. Then the quarterback is under a lot of pressure, because The automatic short throw stops being quite so automatic. Once the QB pump fakes and waits for the double move, for example, somebody on the defensive line is beginning to apply pressure, and now the offense is in some trouble. I don't think there's any other way to play the game. Plus, if Bosa is healthy and the old Bosa, once in awhile Rousseau is going to be dropping into coverage and the Bills will be rushing three, still threatening to get it the quarterback with Bosa and adding a big, tall, mobile defender in the short passing lanes. Hairston can help with all of this because he looks to be able to play press coverage and cut off some of the quick passing opportunities. You're right about this. You don't have to watch very much video of the guy to understand that he is an extraordinary athletic talent. Both his speed and his quickness are breathtaking, and he looks like he is good hands too. He's a big time athlete in a relatively small body. As Beane said, if he were 6'2 and 15 lb heavier, he would have gone way up at the top of the draft I'm excited about him. He could be really special.

Thanks for this. I've said before that I very much wanted the bills to get a difference maker somewhere. A guy that teams have to plan for. I've always thought that guy was an interior lineman, particularly a one-tech tackle. Generally, I don't think cornerbacks can be maker makers, and I doubt Hairston will be one, particularly in McDermott's D. However, I agree with what you said, because the lineman disappeared off the board so quickly that it simply wasn't possible to get up into the draft far enough to get a guy who projected as a difference maker. The next best choice was a really good defensive player at almost any position, and it seems like that's what they got. Of course, he has to show he can do it, but he projects as a guy who can be very valuable in McDermott's defense. I haven't read the entire thread, and I don't know what others have said, but I haven't seen anyone just making the comment about the fact that Houston's speed alone makes him a special threat on corner blitzes. Unblocked, he can get to the QB fast. He looks like the kind of guy who McDermott can use as a weapon all over the field. He could be a better version of Tre White at White's best. I like the pick and I think we're going to be happy that Hairston is on the team.

I never am a student of the draft, but my view of the Bills needs was the same as you. I wasn't desperate to get a high end corner, in part because McBeane have done so well putting solid corners on the field without spending a lot on them. But I also agree with you that if Hairston can start, the Bills have a very nice corner room. Of course, a few years ago I was typing "If Elam can start," and we know how that went. It isn't easy to play the corner the way McDermott wants it played.

Sorry to hear this. Sounds like a genuinely nice guy.

Exactly! What you say about last season is exactly how I see it: A reset year in which the general wisdom of McDermott's approach was demonstrated by the success he had with a bunch of players we all were worried about. This year they can afford to give up pics, of which they have plenty, because they have a solid team whose effectiveness was demonstrated last season. Now they need to add a difference Maker. I don't think the difference Maker is on offense. What they need is a stud, lineman or linebacker and I hope they trade up to get one.

Thanks for finding that. Good stuff in there. As for what is a shutdown corner, I think that fans and the media put a lot of emphasis on the Sauce Gardner types who have extraordinary quickness and have shown an ability to stick closely to even the fastest receivers on their cuts and changes of direction. They are remarkable athletes, but they are most useful only in defenses that play a lot of man-to-man and that want to force offenses to play only in a portion of the field by taking away the number one receiver. Belichick's Patriots played that way. That's why Belichick wanted Stefon Gilmore McDermott has been a leader in playing a more team-oriented defensive approach that requires the cornerbacks to be much more versatile. There have been very few cornerbacks good at both. Tre White is about as good as we've seen in terms of show those shutdown characteristics and playing in a team-oriented defense. Great shut down skills are somewhat wasted in a team-oriented defense, because the defense plays more zone and help schemes, and therefore the shutdown corners skills are wasted. Bills fans can argue about the approach. Sometimes I think that McDermott's ideal defensive lineup would have 11 guys all weighing between 200 and 260 pounds with good speed and serious competitiveness. It's as though he would like to play with 11 fast small linebackers. The wisdom in how McDermott wants to play is that the more specialized your players get - like having a shutdown corner or a monster one tech tackle - the easier it is for the offense to scheme away from that guy's special skills and toward that guy's weaknesses. McDermott wants 11 players on the field who have no serious weaknesses, and in order to do that, for most players that means avoiding guys with special skills.

I feel your pain.

You seem to think that there's a category - good players who used to play for the Bills. And you seem to think that everyone who is in that category is, by definition, no longer useful to the Bills. Thank goodness that Beane and McDermott actually have brains in their heads and can examine the case of each former Bill and see the differences between them.

I'm not ready to say absolutely yet, but I don't disagree. It's interesting to have this discussion with White having just signed. I think Benford could be another White, and by that I mean a star corner in this system but not a top three corner. I say that because at least the way the free agent market has defined the top three, it's always shut-down corners. I never thought White, good as he was, was a top-three shut-down corner, and I don't think Benford will be, either. What I've said for a quite a while is that the way McDermott wants to play the game, a shut-down corner doesn't matter to him as much as an all-round guy who is very good at man, zone, tackling, run support, and the team concept. So, while I love Benford and think he's just what the Bills want, I doubt the market ever will recognize him as top-three. (Actually, with his extension, the market may never have an opportunity to recognize him in his prime.)

I don't think it complicates much of anything. I'm sure Beane and McDermott love Tre, but there is no sentimentality involved here. There's no question that they had very frank conversations with Tre about something that he already fully understands: nobody is going to give him anything. Tre knows that he is not a long-term solution at any position on this team and that a younger, better player may come along at any time and move ahead of him, including a guy drafted next week. This is an upside, no downside signing, at least from a positional point of view. If somehow he's now fully recovered and he's back to something like his old self, it's a homerun. If he's healthy but has lost a step, then he's a better version of Dane Jackson - a guy who knows the defense inside and out, a guy who can step it at any time, always be in position, always contributing to the team. If he's less than either of those and injuries have taken too great a toll, he'll be gone. He'll understand, and he will thank the Bills for having given him the opportunity. And back to the homerun. If he can be what Benford is (which in my mind is very good but not quite what the younger Tre White was), then the Bills are really solid and versatile at corner. That would be two good cover corners, two smart zone corners, two run-stopping tacklers. That would allow the coaches to get more creative with their linebackers and safeties, just the way McDermott likes to play the game. Last one against the Lions was pretty bad, but most of the others he was in pretty good position and played the receiver pretty well. Clearly needed to clean some things up, but as we saw when he was with the Bills, he is almost always with his man and in position to make a play. That's what McDermott wants from his corners.

I agree. And I don't think it's a lot of stars, either. I'd like one real stud on the defense. I think the guys who got extended - Oliver, Rousseau, Bernard, Benford, are all really good at doing their jobs, but there isn't a star among them. If things work out well, Bosa could be the guy, and if he is, that could be enough to put them over the top. That's why I'm a fan of the Bills trading up this year. Package the first, a second, and some other picks to get up into the teens and go after a guy with the potential to be a real difference make. If the Bills got lucky and landed a guy like a Watt, a Bosa, a Parsons, or a Chris Jones, this defense would be real trouble for several seasons.

So, the Bills generally are getting good value in the draft, compared to consensus. That begs the question: Is Beane doing a good job, or is the consensus wrong? The real question is how well did teams draft when compared the to first three years of performance from the drafted players? A little tougher question to answer, but that is where the rubber meets the road.

Thanks for this. (You left off Jason Peters, who probably was the best offensive tackle ever to play for the Bills. I know most of his great years were with the Eagles, but he was a stud by the time he left Buffalo. He was already on a Hall of Fame trajectory.) I think you're point about corners and tight ends highlights a reality about those positions - they aren't game-changing positions, and you don't often find game-changing players at those positions. If you think about corners, what doesn it mean to have a shut down corner? Well, all it really means is that the game turns into 10-on-10 instead of 11-on-11. Shut-down corners don't win games; they just keep one player on the other team from beating you. Shut-down corners don't cause offenses to reshape their offense; the offense just limits their attack to less than the entire field. The offensive equivalent of a shut-down corner is the stud receiver - the Chases, Hills, Jeffersons, etc. Those guys can attack the entire field, so they actually do reshape the defense. They are, I think, more valuable than shut-down corners. I always thought it was interesting that for many years, Belichick built his defense around the shut-down corner. He had that other guy before he gave Gilmore a ton of cash. Between the two of them, the Pats had star corner talent for five or six years running. Belichick saw a real advantage in playing 10-on-10. I think the shut-down corner is no longer that valuable. Everyone, not just the Bills, is playing more zone these days, because it's the only way to cover the ever-changing route combinations offensives are attacking with. Playing straight man-to-man all day is a formula for losing, because offenses now always can find weaknesses to attack. Today, if you want to succeed playing strictly man, you need three really good cover corners, two good safeties, AND one or two good linebackers. Nobody has that. Zone is (and always has been) the way to cover your weaknesses, whether they are schematic weaknesses or personnel weaknesses.

Sure, but the assumption is that VPG will grow into a quality starter himself. It's that kind of building that Beane wants to do, the younger guy grows into the replacement before you need him. If the Bills extend McGovern without a plan to release him, then it means that they think VPG can't be what they hoped. I think in Beane's perfect world, VPG forces McGovern out of Buffalo. If that doesn't happen, it means Beane is looking, again, for a center in the free agent market.

And McGovern is one of those players, just like Morse, who may be cut free a year or two before his career is done. So if he gets an extension this year, I'd guess that he doesn't play out the full contract with the Bills.

I agree. It's gotta be a guy Beane has top 10 or 12 - a possible star - and he's falling in the teens. And I agree - only if they think he's a difference. If he's the best in a bad draft, that isn't enough.

I get this, but I like the argument the other way. When you say the "value starts in the mid-20s," you're talking about it like it's a market, and it is, to some extent. But just looking at value ignores need. What this team needs, in my opinion, is a player who's a difference maker. It's true, there are difference makers to be had in the second round, but they're very difficult to find. It's pure luck. The difference makers, we all know, are typically found in the top 15. Not every top 15 is a difference maker, but the chances of getting one there are much, much better than in the second round. The Bills have a good, solid roster. They always could use two or three starters out of the draft, but they have plenty of good starters. Much better to add one guy on the d line who turns out to demand double teams. He makes everyone around him better. A guy like that is hard to get in the second round. If the Bills were building, like maybe the Pats, I agree, give me the picks. But the Bills are built, and they're looking for someone to put them over the top. For that kind of guy, the Bills have go looking for him.

I would love a move into the teens, for whatever talent Beane sees there.

I agree with all of this. And I've noticed this change in the bold portion. I think he has signalled that he will be making moves. And I think with two seconds he is primed to move up in the first. He can make that move, save one second, then use the late round picks to move up some in the mid rounds.

I disagree. I think if you look at the team building that has gone on in the past couple of years, and particularly in light of the several extensions that were negotiated in the last couple of months, it's easy to see that the Bills are building a team designed to be at maximum strength during the prime of Josh Allen's career. They need one additional stud player to round out the lineup, someone who is a true playmaker. With the exception of Tre'davius White, the Bills have demonstrated that it is more a matter of luck than skill to get a really special player late in the first round, where the Bills are condemned to be drafting. Greg Russell is a perfect example; great player, but not a really special playmaker. Therefore, it wouldn't surprise me at all if McDermott were saying to Beane "get me a special guy." And it wouldn't surprise me at all if Beane were thinking that way on his own. We have seen Beane trade up before, when he sees a guy who is very high on his board who has fallen further than he anticipated. He did it with Edmonds, for example. I think if the right guy is someplace in the top 15 or 18, Beane will go after him. In my mind, the right guy is the 1T who will truly anchor the defensive line. A special guy in the middle would unleash Oliver and Rousseau, and then McDermott would have the defensive line he wants and needs to run his defense.

But there is a reason not to acquire an elite shutdown corner. A couple of them. Principally, McDermott's defense is designed to ask the corner to be an all-around. If he could, McDermott would have three Taron Johnsons. They won't change the defense to play a corner on an island because they have a player who's good at it. The second reason is that they want to keep the guys they draft, and if they draft a star corner, he'll leave after his first contract, because he's worth more to a team that does want to do what you say. Different coaches, but Gilmore left because the Bills didn't want true shutdown talent and Belichick did. They do it for Bosa because McDermott is as adamant about rushing four as he is about his corners being powerful run-support players. So, when the Bills go to the market for an edge, the guy has to be able to get to the quarterback. That's what every team wants, so the Bills are forced to pay the price for premier talent. At corner, on the other hand, the McDermott scheme makes it possible to fill the defensive backfield without paying premium prices, because the Bills don't build around a premier cover corner.

The Bills aren't in the market for a true shutdown corner. That is not the style that the Bills play. And since they don't particularly want a true shutdown corner, they won't pay the corner they do want at shutdown-corner prices. It's a very convenient for the Bills that the guys they want on the field are not, at least in the defensive backfield, the guys who establish the market. I think it's the same thing with Rousseau. The big-name flashy, 15-sack per season edge is usually not the guy the Bills want. They want a true all-round DE like Rousseau, who can rush the passer and can stop the run. So they get to sign Rousseau for less than big-name, market-setting guys. Where I have my doubts about this system is that I think sooner or later the Bills are going to a go-to play maker at some position in addition to Allen. That's not Benford and it's not Rousseau. With luck, it'll be Bosa for a year or two.