Shaw66

I know, but I'm writing about what it feels like. What's going on seems very impressive to me.

I agree. And as I look at what I wrote, none of it had anything to do with Allen's potential on the field. I'm a homer, for sure, but this all seems so different, so right. The way they're doing things, I have a high level of confidence. Confidence in Daboll rising to his challenges, the oline taking on a winning persona, Beasley and Brown being threats, the defense being solid. And then there's Allen. I don't want to let myself dream about what HE could be. Of course, the reality is that it's really hard to win in the NFL. Really hard. So nothing is a given.

Even Peterman wasnt an exception. He didn't make it, but all GMs take some guys who don't make it. It's important not to let guys go too early. When you take a guy you have to be willing to invest time in him. Like Foster. The Bill's saw something in Peterman, so they gave him time to develop. It was the right approach. Not every project plans out.

I agree Logic. As I suggested in my post, I don't think it's just about the new facility. The Bills seem to be doing everything right. A few examples, and they aren't just on the management side. McDermott's total sincerity. Beane's completely straight forward approach with players. Allen calling free agents to welcome them. Shady recruiting Gore. Beasley picking the Bills over the Pats. The Pegulas continuing dedication to the whole project and their support of McBeane. And behind all of it is the fans. I was doing my taxes and was sure to take the deduction for my $17 donation to the Dalton Foundation. It reminded me about all of that. That kind of passion - $400,000 for a desperation TD pass - isn't lost on free agents. I never imagined a transformation like this.

That's a great post. Outstanding. Thanks. I think the coaching challenge is an important point. Most important is the challenge of having a raw rookie oline coach with all these new faces. I'm a little less optimistic about the impact of all the new oline guys. Some of those guys are going to get cut. And I disagree about the draft. The Bills won't shy away from a stud OT on the first round if he is the BPA. The Bills signed a lot of players, but there isn't a premier tackle among them. I agree completely about Roberts. I think his impact will be felt in the return game AND on offense, where he will be an upgrade overr McKenzie, who wasn't bad on the jet sweeps and gadgets. I really hadn't bought the notion about too many draft picks, but I think you're correct. Bills will make moves. I think what is going to happen is McD will get a couple of sleepers in the second, third, fourth rounds, guys he loves and Beane is willing to move up for. Your comments about the facilities are interesting. Fact is, everything the Bills are doing seems to be first class and with a purpose. I won't be surprised if in a few years people are talking the Bills as a model franchise. Thanks for your post. It really is excellent.

Moorman - It's good to hear you're on the mend after what had to be a real ordeal. Best wishes, stay on your meds, be positive. You know, you're still really young. You have plenty of time to build a great life. Be grateful for every day. I think the Bills had a great off-season. There is no doubt there is more talent and more quality experience on the offensive line than a year ago. Morse, in particular, looks to be a great addition and the anchor of the line for many years. Beasley and Brown look like great upgrades to a woeful receiver group, so there's hope there, too. Still the draft, with 10 picks, so there's more help on the way. Oh, and Josh Allen looks like he's emerging as the leader of the offense. I think the Bills are positioned to do great things.

I haven't watched all the videos. I had one reaction what I did watch. The videos made me realize how many of the highlights that the media show are running plays. When I think if Allen these days, I literally forget about his running. I mean, his running was great last season, and it helped the Bills win some games, but if he's going to have a big future, it's not going to be by running that much. If he's the best QB in the league in 10 years, it won't be because he gains 600 yards on the ground. It will be because he's an outstanding field general with one of the best arms in the history of the league. That's it. He has the arm, he just has to learn how to execute a quality NFL offense. He'll still scramble, and there still may be occasions when he makes big plays with this legs, but that will be only a small part of what makes him great. So what I like in these videos is his pocket presence, the fact that his eyes are always downfield, his quick release, his accuracy (yes, but let's not go there). That's what gets me excited about this season and the seasons to come.

I think the OP makes an interesting point. Frankly, I don't think that's WHY the Bills signed the guys they did, but it will be a result of what they did. McBeane have said several times that no team will be known as more physical than the Buffalo Bills. They want the Bills the physically tough. That's why so many of the guys they signed for the O line this year seem to have that mean streak, and that's Teller was one of the few survivors when McBeane started cutting linemen. A tangential benefit of having guys like this on the offensive line is what the OP says - these are guys who are going to take offense, physically, when their QB gets hit unnecessarily. There was a play last season when someone jumped in as soon as Allen took one of those hits, don't remember the game or the player, and I don't remember the result (penalties or whatever). What I do remember is that when asked about the play after the game, McDermott said something like "we don't condone fighting and we don't want stupid dies, but I like to see my guys stand up for their teammates." I think we can expect the offensive line to play with some aggressiveness that we lost when Richie left.

I sort of scrolled through to see what others said. Mine are similar. Stratton Lincoln for sure. Mcgee's kickoff return. Beebe and Lett Fitz to TO for 99 yards. Plenty more I'm forgetting. A lifetime of highlights. Oh, yeah!

I'd guess you misperceive how McBeane operate. They want team players who have certain physical skills. This guy has physical skills. I'd guess they look at him and think "he will fit our schemes and make plays." They aren't looking for stars in free agency; they're looking for good athletes who will do their job. Their objective is to have a team full of good athletes who will do their jobs, and then they sprinkle in a few stars wherever they find them. I'd guess this guy will see significant playing time, unless they find someone better. But they aren't going chasing after someone better - they can live with Harold.

There you go. Dline, and edge rusher just became less of a "need." Beane fills his needs in free agency. BPA coming up, without regard to need. Might be a dlineman, but if it is, it'll be because the Bills like him better than everyone else.

Well, he can make plays. Nice.

Of course you're correct. But the fact that you can vote an exception doesn't mean the system is bad. I've already excepted the Qb situation, and Barkley is another. There are very few others. For example, I gave Watts and Clowney as an example where one would have thought they'd go away from Clowney, but they didn't. Someone said what if you have four HOF DTs. Well sure, bit that's not real. I think that what Beane has said makes it clear except for QB, he's going BPA.

Yeah, Beane actually said something about this. I think what he said was that he didn't feel any pressure to get a dlineman in free agency because dline was so deep in the draft that he was comfortable that one would fall to him somewhere along the way. He was clear that his objective was to fill all his needs in free agency, and he did that. He didn't mean he will value d lineman above other positions when the draft comes because he has a need.

Turns out he's in Amherst on Main Street right at Exit 50. Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. I'll pass them on. And special thanks to the Senator. I was going to tell my friend to do the search himself. Thanks. By the way, you aren't helping just some Red Sox friend. He's a football Giants fan, he lives in Cleveland, but he goes to only one NFL game each year, with me on the road somewhere to see the Bills. So he's kind of a closet Bills fan. On the other hand, HIS friend who's coming for the Frozen Four is a Patriots fan, through and through. Oh, well. Thanks again for your suggestions.

Looking for some first hand info. Yelp has plenty of suggestions, but I'd trust someone here more. Are they likely to have the Sox on, and do they care if you hang out for 3 hours nursing a couple of beers?

I have a friend going to Buffalo for the Frozen Four. He's looking a sports bar to watch the Red Sox on Friday night. Any suggestions? Thanks.

I think the point is that even though the BPA might be the move that makes your team batter this season, he is the guy who will help your team best I. The long run. BPA is NOT a short term strategy.

Here's a couple of other things to think about in a pure BPA system. Suppose you have the best defensive lineman in the league. That means, almost as a certainty, that defensive line is NOT your area of greatest need, because almost any three NFL defensive linemen and the best in the league will make up a decent front four. Now suppose it's your pick and the BPA on your board is a defensive lineman. What do you do? Pure BPA, you take the defensive lineman. Which is exactly what the Houston Texans did with JJ Watt in their lineup and Jadavian Clowney on their board. Take the BPA. Now, in hindsight, it hasn't been a spectacular success story, but that isn't because of the theory. Clowney was injured and may not be quite as good as people thought. Another way to look at is this. You've got all these guys with scores, from 8.0 down to 0.1. At any given point in time, the sum of all the scores of all the guys you have on your team is a measure of how much talent you have. If you take a guy in an area of need with a 7.2 instead of the PBA with a 7.4, you are limiting the total value of all the talent on your team. BPA is a system designed to maximize the talent on the team. When you take the guy with a 7.2 and leave a 7.4 on the board, you never get an opportunity to recover that differential. You certainly don't in the next round, when all that's left are 6.5s or whatever. That 7.4 is an opportunity you lose forever. Now, yes, you may get lucky and get a Kyle Williams in later rounds, but every team has those stories. You can't count on those picks to cover the opportunities you lose when you skip over your BPA. Now, I'll say this: Building a successful team is obviously a very difficult task, and BPA is just one of at least a few different approaches teams take toward the draft. I'm not uncomfortable with this approach, but I really have no idea if it's the best way to go about it.

You make a good point. I'd guess that they evaluate players based in the positions the Bills actually have. So they evaluate the guy as a 4-3 linebacker. As for the rest of your points, I think that's exactly right. Except for QB, the BPA is almost certainly going to help you this season or next. Even safety or corner. If Troy Polamalu is there at 9, you take him.

I think they force themselves to make their best guess as to how good a player he will turn out to be. That best guess obviously includes his ceiling. But they force themselves to pick a number and then they trust that number. So, for example, if 8 is perfect, Allen's ceiling was an 8, because he had all the tools to be perfect. But his score wasn't 8, because they have to calculate the probability that he would actually achieve that level. So his score may have been 7.6. That's how I understand what Beane has said.

Beane's description of the process, and others that I've heard, are that they do what I said. It's something like an 8 point scale, with 8.0 being a certain Hall of Fame player. Every play gets a number, not a range. They force themselves to make a decision that this guy is a 7.4 and not a 7.3, I don't know how they make those judgments, exactly, but I'm sure some of it is physical attributes and some of it is character attributes. But, at least as I've heard Beane describe, none of it is need based. It is simply a number that is the best score the scouts and others can put on each guy. Then at the draft, if it's their pick in the first round, they take the guy with the 7.4 over any guy who has a 7.3. Beane says they follow their board absolutely. They DON'T say, "well, this 7.3 guy is a receiver, and we really could use help at receiver, so we will take him over the 7.4 guy." Beane says they are very strict about their discipline. On something like an 8-point scale, after the first 100 guys, all you have left on the board is a lot of, say, 5.3s and below. You might have 10 5.3s on top of your board when it's your pick in the fourth round. THEN need becomes a factor, according to Beane, but not before. I'm not saying that's the best way to do it, and I get the sense that other GMs have a different approach. But what I just said is what Beane has said about how he does it.

I think people are making this too hard. From what I understand from what Beane (and others) have said, teams like the Bills evaluate every player in the draft and give him a number. That number is a rating of how good the team thinks the player will be. The guy who ends up with the highest number is the best player. What exactly does that mean? Well, obviously, position has to have something to do with it. The best punter in the history of the world could be available, but I don't think he gets the highest rating in the draft, because the difference, in terms of wins and losses, between having the best punter in the world and having any old punter just isn't that great. In fact, I think the difference in wins and losses probably is the way numbers are assigned. Which has the most impact on winning games? That's why QBs are higher on boards than kickers. It's not which player will have the most impact on wins FOR OUR TEAM. It's just which player helps his team win. Another way to look at it is probability of making the Hall of Fame. Hall of Famers are drafted disproportionately at the top of the draft. Why? Because they are the guys who, over the course of their careers, have the most impact on the outcome of games, so they get drafted first. So every guy has a number, the team lists the players in order of their number, and in the early rounds a BPA team like the Bills takes the guy with highest number left on their board. The only exception is if there's an absolute certainty that the guy isn't going to play - like if the Bills' BPA is a QB, you pass on the BPA. Ideally you trade out, but if you can't find a trade partner, you take the second guy. You DON'T do that if it's a DT and you're strong at DT, because the guy is still your BPA, you platoon your DTs, and in a year or two one or more of your other DTs will be gone. So strength at a position generally ISN'T view as a problem by someone like Beane. If he's in the first round and if he already has a GREAT #1 wideout, and if the BPA is a wideout, he takes him. Why? Because the wideout is the BPA, he's going to strength the team (who wouldn't want two true #1s starting for them?), and it won't be a contract problem until the next contract comes up for one or the other. Difference between wins and losses also makes it easy to see why in the later rounds need becomes a bigger factor. In the fourth round, let's say, there aren't any obvious difference makers left. If a guy is perceived as a difference maker, someone will have taken him before the fourth. So the guys left all have similar or identical scores (based on size, athleticism, brains, etc.), because none of them is likely to impact wins and losses any more or less than the other guys with similar scores. So at the point, based on the scores, there isn't one BPA - there maybe 10 or 20, all tied with the same score. Since they all are likely to have the same impact, you're free to take the player who has the BPA score AND who plays a position where you'd like to get more help.

That's a great example of how need might play into a day one decision. Same thing with Allen last year. But when Beane says he takes the BPA he means that at the pick where he finds himself he takes the BPA without regard to need. That's different from trading because he sees a guy who is the BPA who also fits the need. Beane just means he's taking the guy with higher rating, whatever the position the guy may play. If he has a need he may move.

I'm okay with it. As I understand what they're doing, taking the corner or safety improves the level of talent of the team, and in their process, upgrading talent is more important having all positions equally talented. They dont care that much if, say, the receiving corps is a little weaker if in the bargain they got a really good corner. McBeane expect every guy to do his job, so having less talent at receiver, in my example, isn't a disaster. Having a specially talented corner helps more than adding a less talented receiver. They figure it will even out over time. It's very much a long term approach. I'm okay with it. This is exactly the opposite of what Beane says he does. In the early rounds he takes strict BPA. In later rounds he considers need.