Shaw66

I'm long on hopes, hopes that I think are reasonable. I'm relatively short on expectations, because I just don't know. Coleman - I have the most confidence in his being an impact player as a rookie. The Bills weren't going to get one of the top three in the draft, and I think they got the guy they wanted. (Kudos to Beane for trading back twice and still getting him.) I think they drafted him because they can see how he fits in. Bishop - I want to believe, but he won't play until he understands what's going on out there. Bishop, like Bernard two years ago, comes with a reputation for being a coach-on-the-field-type player, and Bernard couldn't sniff the field his rookie season. I have high hopes, but I think he'll have to work his way into the role over the course of the season. Carter - I hope he's Kyle Williams. I think he'll be in the rotation day 1, or very soon. Whether he has an impact remains to be seen. Davis - I agree with others; he will be the #1 backup, and get significant snaps. I hope he can push Cook for the #1 spot. Van Pran-Granger - highest hopes; if he can take over at center, the offensive line looks great. Whether he can is anyone's guess. Ulofoshio - rookie linebackers don't play on this defense. Solomon - great hopes. It sounds like he has some physical skills that will make it hard to keep him off the field. Defining his role will be tough. Again, great hopes, but expectations? Bills likely will give snaps to a veteran before Solomon. Hardy - I expect him to make the 53.

That play was amazing. Maybe i underestimate the guy.

McDermott believes in the growth mindset, and I do, too. Not only was I a better lawyer at 40 than 35, but I was better at 50 than 40. And not just a little better, a lot better. Last time Lebron won an NBA championship, Van Pelt asked him, "You're 37. You won you first championship at 27. If 27-year-old Lebron was sitting next to you, what would you say to him?" Lebron said something like, "27-year-old Lebron, you don't have a clue." It was Lebron's way of saying that he was so much better at 37 that it was hard to explain. I have no doubt McDermott is better at being a head coach today than he was a year ago, and he was better then than the year before that. Now, there are limits, as you say, and for intellectual growth, which is what we're talking about, natural intelligence limits growth. For some people, it's either impossible or extraordinarily difficult to learn nuclear physics. Without at all meaning to demean the man, but it's certainly possible that McDermott has maxed on his growth as a head coach. I seriously doubt it, but it's possible. I think Brady is going to be fine, and because he will grow, too, he'll get better in coming seasons. Problem is that if he has a lot of success he'll be sucked off to some head coaching job, and McDermott will have to choose again.

Oh, I wasn't aware that Aiyuk had been whining. That gives me less comfort. I don't like Metcalf's attitude, at all. Whenever I see him, he looks to me like he thinks that because he's the biggest fast receiver and the fastest big receiver that he's God's gift to the world of football. Running back is about the only position where physical gifts and instincts can make you a winner without dedication to the finer points. Metcalf has never impressed me as a disciplined route runner or a guy who makes big plays. Spectacular plays, yes, because his skills are so special, but not big plays. When the chips are down, I don't think you can rely on him. Just my impression. I think, for example, that Diggs was a guy you could count on for the big play, until last season. I don't think Metcalf ever has been the go-to guy that Diggs was in his earlier seasons in Buffalo.

When my grandson was 10, we went out in the driveway, and he made four free throws out of ten. Now he's 15, and a couple nights ago he made 93 out of 100. When I was 35, I was a smart young lawyer. When I was 40, I was a much smarter lawyer. Point is, people learn and improve, especially motivated and dedicated people. McDermott never hired an OC until seven years ago, and prior to that he had zero training in the subject. There is every reason to believe that he is getting smarter about all kinds of things head coaches are asked to decide, including hiring coordinators. There isn't any more reason to think that he will always go 1 for 3 on OCs than I had to think that my grandson always would make only 40% of his free throws. Having said that, it bothers me that McDermott prefers to hire people he's worked with, particularly promoting from within. Brady's a William and Mary football player and has a Carolina connection. It makes me concerned that he doesn't cast a wide enough net. I get that he likes having confidence in the way a guy works, confidence that comes from working with him, but there are other things that are important, too. Still, McDermott is desperately about winning and about continuous improvement. He's not one to repeat the mistakes from the past. So, I have some confidence that Brady knows what he's doing and that in particular he will take Allen to a higher level.

Aiyuk yes, Metcalf no. And Deebo is just more Curtis. I doubt it is happening, but the 49ers have to do something. Maybe they will wait until after this season, but something is coming.

I thought this thread was over. Then this, and I had to respond. Part of the point that you and others seem to have missed is that 2019 is practically the dark ages in terms of the evolution of offense and defense in the NFL. The Bills' 2019 offense with that talent would be shut down completely by 2024 defenses. Longing for the way things used to be is like longing for an egg cream at your local drugstore soda fountain - the memories are nice, but the world has moved on. Not my intention, and I've said so repeatedly. I do think that the way the receiver room turned out reflects that McBeane agree some with what I think is an NFL trend, but I've said that the receiver room isn't my idea of an ideal group. I think it's because I, too, am stuck in thinking about the game the way it used to be. McBeane have been very good at getting the roster ready for September, and I don't believe that they've just completely failed at receiver. They do everything with a purpose, and that tells me that they believe they can win with this group. (Unless Beane has a deal in his pocket. I continue to wonder whether Beane and Lynch don't have a handshake on Aiyuk or Deebo Samuel - an agreement that after June 1, San Francisco is moving one or the other to Buffalo. The 49ers' draft loaded up their receiver room, which suggests they might be moving on from one of their studs, and if so, out of the conference makes sense.) Have another egg cream. Of course you were clamoring for a running back, just like plenty of people were clamoring for a receiver this year. Nobody's winning Super Bowls with stud running backs. Thurman and Emmit may have been the last great running backs on Super Bowl contending teams. Not Barkley, not Henry, not Tomlinson, not Zeke Elliott, not Adrian Peterson, not LeSean McCoy. McCaffrey is the only one in 20 years, and he's a freak. You can't build a team hoping you're going to find another McCaffrey. Fans clamoring means exactly nothing. Remeber last summer. Fans were clamoring for a linebacker to start. The Bills already had one, and the fans didn't have a clue.

I said best of his career. Classic Shaw66 homerism. Here's why: 1. Josh is still learning. The reality of pro sports is that the athletes keep improving until their bodies begin to fail them. For running backs and some receivers, that comes pretty early, often before they're 30. For QBs, they can last until their late 30s without serious decline in their abilities. For Josh, he will lose his running ability before then, but the important part of QB growth is mental. Josh is at peak physical performance, and he's still climbing the learning curve, so he will be a better QB in 2024 than in any previous seasons. 2. Brady's offense is going to be good, and well suited to Josh and his receivers. How do I know that? Because Beane and McDermott are trying to build a winner, they got to see Brady in a tryout half-season, have gotten to know how he thinks about the game and what kind of attack he envisions. McBeane have had an opportunity to test what Beane offers, and they obviously concluded that Brady can do the job. They might be wrong, of course - they thought Dorsey could do it, too, but the extended tryout means they are much more likely to have gotten it right this time. 3. The receiving room is matched to the offense that Brady wants to run. How do I know that? Because the receiving room has been substantially reshaped, and it must have been reshaped in a way that Brady wanted. There would be no point in trying out Brady at OC, deciding he could do the job, and then dumping Diggs and Davis and acquiring the guys they did. 4. The offensive line looks set (assuming McGovern or VPG handles the center position), so both pass pro and the running game should be fine. If it's a truly balanced attack, Allen may not have career passing stats, but if I'm correct, he'll run the offense even better than last season, which I though was a break-out year for him as a field general. This is going to be a good offense, and it all starts with Josh.

Exactly, as to both. MVS likely will turn out to be useful; Claypool is a shot in the dark.

How do you know that the WR is not what he planned for? It's just that you don't like it, and you think where the Bills are is inadequate. I get that. To be honest, I'm not thrilled with it either. I don't completely understand how they will make a productive passing attack out of that room (plus the TEs and RBs). But the fact that I don't understand doesn't really matter. I think Beane and McDermott and Brady talked extensively about what they needed in the receiver room, and I think the reasonable assumption is that they got what they wanted. That is, they came out of the draft in a way that followed the plan. I think the two trades back tell it all. If the McBeane and Brady were so desperate for receivers, they either would have taken one at 28, or they would have traded back to get additional picks so they could get two receivers. In fact, they traded back, but then they didn't take the second receiver. Why not? Because they didn't think a second receiver was necessary. The receiver room looks the way it did because of conscious, intentional choices made at OBD. How it looks is part of a carefully considered plan. Whether the plan works is a different question, and I can't argue with you if you conclude it isn't likely to work. I don't know if it'll work.

I think MVS at least replaces Davis, although I don't know how he measures up when asked to block. For me, they're both talented guys with good size who have demonstrated a level of inconsistency that means you can't make them the focus of your attack. (I also think Knox is one of those guys at his position, too.) However, both Davis and MSV have come through for their teams big-time from time to time, and for that reason they've been useful to their teams and worth keeping around. Once the price went up to keep Davis, he simply wasn't worth the money. So, the fact that MSV is at least in the same category and will play for less, it was a smart move. The problem is that demonstrated level of inconsistency makes neither of them is the guy you want on the field as a regular starter. Why? Because when you don't have stud #1, a guy who can give you something extra, when you've decided that receiver by committee is the best way to attack defenses, one of the basic requirements is that you execute at a high level. Over and over, you run the right route. Over and over, you catch the ball. Over and over, you make the block. This kind of passing attack is part of a philosophy that I believe strongly in: Get positive yardage on every play. Zero yardage on a play is a bad thing, and negative yardage is not even on the table. Throwing a 50-50 ball 30 yards downfield, is much worse than throwing an 80-20 ball 6 yards, even though over five plays the 50-50 ball gets you more yards. Inconsistency results in unnecessary zero-yardage plays, so this philosophy means that you don't want inconsistent receivers on the field. It's almost as though consistency is more important than greatness. I liked having Davis on the team, and I like having MSV for the same reasons, but I'm sure hoping Shakir, Samuel, and Coleman get the job done, because I don't want to have to depend on a steady diet of MSV.

Ah, that makes a lot of sense. You're correct. That is, if I'm correct, in the rinse-wash-repeat sense of how to manage the receiver room, then you must be drafting to replenish the veteran departures. That does seem to be the way teams, including the Bills are running their running back room. Draft good running backs, and be prepared to let them walk when their contracts are up. Draft some more. And if that's correct, and I think it is, then the Bills should have drafted another receiver. Looking at it cold-heartedly, there's a good chance that one of Samuel, Shakir, or Coleman is going to let people down this season. I like to think that they'll all be good, but realistically, probably not. The veterans are only stopgaps, and just like the starter, one or more of MSV, Claypool, and Hollins going to wash out, more or less. There already should be someone else, waiting in the wings. Maybe they think Shorter is that guy.

Excellent discussion. I agree with your concerns, particulalrly that the phulisiphy thw Bills folliw is greay for the regukar season but not so goos for the playoffs.

This all makes sense. It's the argument on the other side. I don't think that's where things are going, but it makes sense. I will point out, however, that you stud receiver also might not show up in the playoffs, so the fact that team system may fail cuts both ways. And I think the Milano argument is incorrect. Milano, or Von Miller, play positions where although some teamwork is necessary, the positions are primarily about individual skills. They play off the players around them to some extent, but mostly it's about their individual makeup. The receivers are in part about choreography - the routes they run, the options they need to make, releases off the line out of bunch formations.

That just isn't the point. The point is that the philosophy that I think is taking over is a philosophy that says, "a well functioning passing team will outproduce a group of receivers who have a perceived #1." That philosophy says that every receiver on a well functioning passing team will do multiple things well, and the offense will not depend on him to produce all that he is capable of producing individually. That is, the system may need him do more in the offense than go deep or whatever it is that makes him so special, and as he does those other things, his value based on his special skills drops. But from the team point of view, the production is better with the team approach. (And, by the way, this teamwork-is-better-than-individual-stars philosophy is very much, maybe completely in-tune with McDermott's approach. So, it seems quite plausible that McDermott's view of the receiver room is what I'm describing. He may be really excited about Kincaid, Samuel, Shakir, Coleman, Cook, Knox and whoever else steps up with contributions.) Again, what do I know? It just seems that way to me.

This is really good. It's a good discussion of lots of technically relevant stuff. Thanks. Yes, as an example, Kupp has some special skill. And Kelce. Their special skill is that they play the game with supreme intelligence. They don't seem to have any physical skill that stands out; what makes them stand out is that running almost any route tree, they can perceive the correct options, thinking along with the QB, and they have good physical skills to move where they have to move and to catch the ball. And those guys are very valuable in a disciplined offensive environment, where smart coaches are actually creating circumstances for those guys to read and react. I am not saying Shakir or Samuel is about to become Kupp or St. Brown. I'm saying they all establish their value to the team by being committed to playing a team game - everyone blocks, everyone runs his routes professionally, everyone catches the ball as they should. That's the difference. Our view of Diggs was that he was and had to play like the lead dog. My view of the Bills' receiver room now is that it's full of team players, and a leader will emerge. And my view generally is that more teams play football with that style, the value of receivers in free agency will fall. Not their importance; receivers are always going to be important. But their value. I fully get that I could be partially or even completely wrong about this. It's just the way it looks to me.

6 feet, 195 pounds, 4.5 40. What physical talent does he have that makes him elite? He's elite because of his stats. How much of his stats is dependent on his physical abilities, and how much of it is dependent on the match of his particular athletic abilities with (1) a star offensive coordinator, (2) a solid, accurate veteran QB, (3) a high-performing tight end? No one projected St. Brown as a league-leading receiver.

Thanks. Good stuff. Yes, I know it's not as simple as just giving them more targets. I think if you're trying to build a receiving as I've described, you don't put all your eggs in one basket. I think the Bills are taking a multiple approach. Do you think the Bills will have 4000 yards passing this season? Do you think they will have a 1000-yard receiver? I think the answer to both of those questions is yes. I don't know who the 1000-yard receiver will be, but I'm guessing that one of Kincaid, Shakir, Samuel, and Coleman will go over 1000. One of those guys is going to be productive in a way that resembles Kelce, St. Brown, Kupp and some others. They'll get more targets than they've gotten historically. Brady probably could tell us today which of those four is the one they think is most likely to be that guy, but I'd bet that even they would say they aren't sure. Yes, some guys are just low-target guys. I don't think it's been demonstrated yet that Shakir is one of those, nor has it been demonstrated with any of the others I named. They haven't historically had high targets, and that is in part because they aren't traditional-type stud #1s. They don't demand targets. My whole point is that there's nothing much about St. Brown or Kupp that allows them to demand targets, either. They just are good at taking advantage of opportunities. I think modern football is trending in the direction that will systematically afford targets to anyone who can take advantage. It's a more complicated way to run your offense, it stresses the defenses more, and it frees your offense from being dependent on one guy to create the opportunities for others. I know I'm not going to change you mind, and I also know that, at least as the league stands today, I'm overstating the case. However, I enjoy talking with you about it, because your opinions always are grounded in quality fact and analysis. Thanks.

What I believe is that yours is the old-fashioned approach. I thin k the new, team approach is that collectively they all create space for all of them to eat. Your approach means you're aleays dependent on having that stud #1. Its not a sustainable model. Giants invrsted heavy apital in bo a running back and OBJ - doubly unsustainable.

Because the model that is emerging depends on a couple of things the Bills haven't had: A creative passing scheme. It's why so many people here have argued for an offensive head coach. Shanahan, McVay, Reid, and the guy in Green Bay, all get it and all are doing it. If the guy is your head coach, he isn't going to get old or get injured. You can have him for 20 years, and he just keeps cycling through receivers. Dorsey clearly wasn't that guy. I think the Bills think Brady is, and one of the signs is that they seem to have been anxious to get Samuel, a Brady protege. The Bills were invested in the old model - that's why they got Diggs. The wanted a stud #1 and thought they had one. I have no hard evidence of this, but I've wondered whether Brady began implementing this approach last season and that is what led to Diggs's decline and emotional funk. Diggs thinks of himself as a stud #1, and Brady may have been asking him to be a yardage collector along with Shakir and Kincaid. The other thing you need is a QB smart enough to execute the scheme. I think that's Allen, but the scheme requires supreme discipline, and that hasn't always been Allen's forte. I think the Bills are trying to get on the wave after the innovators, but still early.

My point was not that every guy can be a star receiver. My point is that the kind of guys who increasingly are putting up big numbers are yardage collection guys, not overwhelming physical talents. Kupp and St. Brown looked like Shakir until they more nicely into the system and started getting more targets. The Bills now have three guys - Shakir, Samuel, and Coleman - who could be yardage collectors. They all feature good route running, good hands, and good run after catch talent. These guys are all over the league, and they keep coming out of college. And they're better than Beasley. Beas, like Edelman, was exceptionally valuable less than ten yards off the line of scrimmage. They made plays downfield occasionally, but where they sparkled was with their ability to separate off the line. The yardage collectors are different in that they're more adept at running the entire route tree. Yardage collectors may not separate as well as Beas and Edelman, but they get open by being intelligent route runners. They're more valuable than Beas and Edelman. And the most important point about the yardage collectors is that the they don't have to be freak athletes, like a Justin Jefferson. They're freak athletes, to be sure, in terms of quickness, brains, etc., but they aren't physically dominant. That's important, because that makes them more easily replaceable. When the Patriots lost Welker, Edelman stepped right in. Now, it's not always the case that you'll have an equally good talent waiting in the wings, but you can always have a guy who fits the profile who can move into the role and you can see how he does. No team has a potential Justin Jefferson on the practice squad waiting to take the place of the real Justin Jefferson. It seems to be working in the same way for the Bills at running back. Draft a Singletary, then draft a Moss, then draft a Cook, then draft a Davis. If one works out, play him. If he doesn't, move on and get another one. Chiefs' running backs room looks the same. And their receiver room does, too. And, by the way, several people have said the Chiefs aren't using the dime-a-dozen approach because they have a Hall of Fame TE. That's true, but Kelce also is a yardage collector. Gronk overpowered defenses at tight end. Kelce doesn't. He's big and breaks some tackles occasionally, but he's not unguardable like Gronk was. Kelce is a smart route runner with good hands and some after the catch ability. He happened to come in a different body type than Kupp and St. Brown and Samuel (Curtis) and Samuel (Deebo), but he plays the same game. And that's what the Bills hope to have in Kincaid, too.

This great. Thanks. I don't agree, but you may be right. Two things: 1. I'm not trying to rationalize what the Bills are doing, in order to say it's a good thing. But I think it's interesting that the Bills have put together this receiving room, and that's what's caused me to think about this. 2. I really didn't mean to denigrate St. Brown or Kupp. They're both great. But they're great in a different way. They simply do not, cannot, dominate physically. They are guys who we typically would think of as slot receivers. But they have what Kelce has, which is an almost uncanny ability to find and take advantage of what the defense is giving him. That's what I meant about their productivity. They aren't productive because their physical talents are special, like a Metcalf. They are productive because they have special ability to take advantage of the passing attack they're operating in. They don't so much "produce" their yardage as they collect yardage that is available. And they are among the very best collectors in in the league. I think that players are not quite so much the plug-and-play stars as they once may have been. When the Bills got Diggs, we got what we expected: a stud #1 who by his very presence on the field produces offense because of his combination of size, speed, and other physical talents. Now, the premier receivers are guys who are thriving in a system. So, for example, I would not necessarily expect that Kupp or St. Brown traded to most other teams would continue to be as productive - that is, they're 1500 yards might not be portable to their next team. If I'm right about that, we will start to see the free agency value of these guys begin to drop.

I thought this would get some juices flowing! I haven't read all the comments yet. I will and will respond. One comment I've seen so far that has gotten me to think a little was the comment about how many receivers are being drafted in the first three rounds. That gave me pause, and there are a lot of potential responses to that idea. First, I agree with those who suggest that the transition to truly dime-a-dozen is still in process. And it's not to suggest that there won't be star receivers who are desirable. The real way we will know the transition is complete is when the free agent value of receivers begins dropping. I think we'll start to see receivers making the same complaint the running backs have made - that by the time their rookie deals are done, teams don't want to write big contracts for them, because they can just as easily draft a replacement. We aren't there yet. Second, I do wonder whether in a year or two from now we'll be thinking that some of these receivers have been over drafted. I don't look at the advanced stats, but I imagine some stats measure value-over-replacement, and I expect that the stats will show that the star is just not that much more valuable to team success. But most importantly, the answer to the question why are so many receivers being taken in the first through third rounds is because there are three starting receiver slots on every team, and the league is churning through receivers. Hopkins and OBJ are at the point in their careers where they are being plugged in here and plugged there, year after year, not unlike MVS and Claypool. A guy like Shakir is in that churn, Gabriel Davis is. There are a lot of guys who make a splash, show some promise, then move around. Just like Singletary. And there are other guys who flash for a year or two and then injuries, or changes on the team, or something shortens their career. There are all these sort of interchangeable players that keep coming into the league with size and/or speed and or RAC, etc., and teams are cycling through receivers. So, the teams need to draft a lot of receivers. Again, it's not that the very best guys are unimportant. And it's not even that the all the others who are drafted on e first two nights are unimportant. They're very important to modern NFL offenses, so they're getting taken on those nights. For example, I never thought, and I still don't think, that Singletary was unimportant. The point is that it's not so important to have the stud receiver in the same way it's not so important for the Bills to have the stud running back instead of Singletary. Teams all over the league are finding that they can access this surplus of receiver talent coming out of colleges and build complex passing offenses that are difficult to defend. The result is that , the special talents of a stud receiver just aren't as important to teams as they once were.

Bills fans have spent the first five months of 2024 talking about receivers: Whom the Bills have and whom they should get. The longer I’ve listened to that discussion, the more I’ve come to the conclusion that fans haven’t really internalized what’s happening in pro football. In short, I think that receivers are following in the footsteps of their cousins, the running backs. Fans, and the New York Giants, were late to realize that in terms of team performance, there isn’t much difference between having a great running back and having a really good one. And you almost always can find a really good one. There’s always a Singletary, a Cook, a Pacheco, or someone else. In earlier eras, if you had a Jim Brown or an Earl Campbell or a Barry Sanders, you were a contender. Not now. Now, you can have a Derrick Henry and, well, you have some great highlights, but highlights don’t get it done any more. Why did that happen to running backs? Two reasons: First, young players keep closing the gap between what the great players can do and what the next level of really good players can do. They learn the moves of the great players, and they condition themselves to be nearly as strong and as powerful. Second, the defenses have matured – the players are bigger, stronger, faster, so that a guy with Jim-Brown talent now finds a defense full of big, strong, fast defenders, and the coaches have schemed their defenses in ways that allow their big, strong, fast defenders to close gaps and gang tackle in ways that just weren’t done in earlier generations. Maybe some 250-pound guy who runs like LaDainian Tomlinson will come along, but that’s unlikely. (As an aside, the same thing is happening in the NBA. In less than ten years, the league has filled up with guys who shoot threes like Steph Curry, guys who are bigger, stronger, and quicker than Steph. And the defenses have gotten smarter. The Warriors of five years ago would be good today, but not dominant in the way they were. (And, by the way, there’s a whole generation of pro golfers who have caught up to the greatness of the early Tiger Woods. They don’t stand out like Tiger because, well, there are a lot of them.) And now we see it happening to receivers. Again, the difference between truly great and very good has gotten smaller, the number of very good receivers has increased. It’s happened for the same reasons that it happened to running backs. Receivers have gotten about as big and fast as they are going to get. The difference in speed between a 4.3 guy and a 4.4 or even 4.5 guy just isn’t very important – 4.5 is plenty fast enough. Kids in high school practice catching balls one-handed, practice tucking the ball away after the catch, etc. By the time receivers have gotten out of college, a lot of them have speed, route-running technique, and catching skills that rival what some of the best NFL players had ten years ago. In other words, it’s become almost impossible to get better physically in a way that makes any one receiver a dominant player. In addition to the younger receivers closing the talent gap, the defenders and the defenses they run have improved, too, for the express purpose of stopping the physically dominant receivers. If you want to win in the NFL, you simply cannot let one player get 150+ yards against you, rushing or receiving, so you create defenses to stop them. You shadow running backs, you double cover receivers, and then you develop nuanced variations off your defenses to slow down the opponent’s star player. Quickly, other teams adopt your ideas. The result is that even the very best running backs and receivers are not stringing 150-yard games, back to back to back, all season long. Yes, every once in a while a Tyreek Hill comes along, a physical freak, and he does string great games for a while, but it’s just a matter of time before teams adjust. What about all the great young receivers out there? Well, I think there’s an important distinction to be made between great receivers and great production. A guy like Julian Edelman was not a great receiver, in the classic Hall of Fame sense. He had great production because of the circumstances he was in, and because he was the right guy to take advantage of those circumstanes. Cooper Kupp is another. Amon-Ra St. Brown is another. These guys are all over the league, guys with excellent speed, very good ball skills, and brains. They have great production, but it isn’t so much that they create the production – they just fit the scheme and get production because they have the skill to take advantage of the opportunities that their offenses create. I’m not saying those guys aren’t good football players. What I’m saying is that they are the Pachecos and Cooks and Singletarys of the receiving world. What I’m saying is that teams are discovering that the physical difference between OBJ and St. Brown does not translate into an important difference in production on the field, just like the difference between Saquon Barkley and Pacheco. What about the true studs, the OBJs and the DHops of the world? The guys who actually create their production? Well, both of those guys came to greatness on their original teams, were true sensations and great weapons, and then were somewhat surprisingly dealt to other teams, where they never recovered their initial luster. Now they’ve been reduced to hired guns that teams hope can somehow reclaim their greatness or at least be reliable 4th receivers. The bottom line is, I think, that the game has moved on from the days when the ideal was to have a true stud skill player on offense (other than your QB). If you had a true stud, you gave him the ball every time you could. In fact, teams have discovered that having a guy who is so good that he demands the ball is a negative, not a positive. When you have a Derrick Henry or an OBJ, they’re only useful if you give them the ball a lot, and that limits your offense. Having a guy like Stefon Diggs, who is prone to sulking if he doesn’t get a catch in your first series, is a liability. The Bills certainly seem to have adopted this thinking. GO BILLS!!! The Rockpile Review is written to share the passion we have for the Buffalo Bills. That passion was born in the Rockpile; its parents were everyday people of western New York who translated their dedication to a full day’s hard work and simple pleasures into love for a pro football team.

Well, I find this very persuasive, until I look at the career playoff stats of Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes has played 18 playoff games, Josh has 10. Mahomes has almost exactly twice as many yards, twice as many TDs, and twice as many INTs. Josh's passer rating is 100, Mahomes is 105. You know what that says to me? It says the difference between the two teams is on the defensive side of the ball. The Chiefs' approach is NOT to make their offense completely unstoppable. It's to have Mahomes plus a defense that wins in the playoffs. Oh, I have no idea what they'll actually do. All I'm saying is that if you look at the roster, there is at least an argument about why they'd want to move one of the veteran receivers. They may or may not be shopping a receiver, and the receiver may or may not be Aiyuk. I'm just looking at it strictly from the Bills' perspective - if I could add a receiver who MIGHT be available, the receivers who MIGHT be available are Metcalf, Samuel, and Aiyuk, and Aiyuk is the only one I'd want.