Shaw66

BPA, people. BPA. How many times do you need Beane to tell you? Draft for BPA, fill holes in free agency. If McBeane felt they had a serious need for a pass rusher, they would have been more active in early free agency. They weren't active. That tells you they're willing to go into the season with what they have plus whatever free agency scraps may be out there. Beane likes having picks, so I dont see him trading for Clowney. If Beane thought Ansah was a fit, Ansah would be signed by now. Beane's style is to decide whether he wants a guy. If he does, he signs him and moves on. If he doesn't, he moves on. He doesn't seem to get into extended on and off discussions for players.

That's certainly my rule for the first round. As much as I loved getting Sammy at the time, trading up in the first round is simply too expensive for any position other than QB. Put another way, no non-QB is going to change your team so much that he's worth trading up for. Now, of course, after the fact you can say that trading up would be worth it to get a JJ Watt or a Lawrence Taylor or someone of that caliber. However, there are a lot more guys predicted to be the next Watt or Taylor than actually make it. If there is one position other than QB that it may be worth trading up for, that position would be middle linebacker. That box is already checked. Trading up in the second or third round to get a targeted player makes some sense. Plus, McBeane have been very clear that they are patient. They view building as a multi-year process, and they clearly seem to think that the chances are the team is improved more by the two players they can get with, say a first and a third than the one player they can get with a higher first.

It means a lot to me. I've listened to McBeane a lot, and I think I understand the process, at least in broad outline. It's very specific, and McBeane don't want to bother with guys who aren't willing to work within their system. As for Brown, I think I get it. Beane said whenever there is exceptional talent available, you have to inquire about it. I think what happened is that they inquired about Brown and concluded that they could reach an agreement with the Steelers, if they could also reach an agreement with Brown. Reaching an agreement with Brown would include getting a sense of whether he would work within the process. Apparently, almost as soon as they reached out to Brown, they realized either Brown wanted too much money or Brown just didn't want to be in Buffalo. If he didn't want to be in Buffalo, then he obviously isn't buying the process. Assuming I'm right about this, what Beane did made sense - pursue the guy until you find out enough about him to know he isn't a fit. I think you're exactly right. Exactly. Geno Auriemma, who coaches the UConn women's team, says he regularly stops recruiting a kid with super talent as soon as he understands she isn't willing to commit to his process.

I'm in complete agreement with this. Like you, I got excited about him in preseason. As you say, he just LOOKS like a QB. And, as you have done, you can break it down in all these little things that he does, in the pocket and outside the pocket. I haven't watched Josh video in a few weeks, and see these highlights brings it all back to me. I'm looking forward to the new season.

I don't know if you're joking, but that IS the thing. McBeane are looking only for guys who fit their mold, and those are guys who fit the process. That's why the interviews are so important to McBeane. They want to assess whether the guy will work daily at improving as well as whether the guy likes to hit people.

One reason is to keep him from getting injured. Several of those replays he took hits he didn't need to. I assume that the coaches will continue to drill him about getting down. Brady avoids contact every chance he gets; he does it because he's been told it's more important to have him on the field than to gain whatever extra yards he thinks he can gain by taking a hit. What Brady does best is does what he's told. Allen needs some of that.

Right. And I continue to think that McDermott is a closet Belichick disciple. That's why he wanted Daboll to run the offense. He wants, I'm guessing, Daboll to install a QB-driven offense that builds on itself year after year, with a talented QB improving year after year. Daboll worked in that system for several years. If McDermott can pull it off, we will be entering into another era of Bills greatness.

What I really like watching these replays is his vision. His eyes are always downfield, he's always looking for a receiver, and when he finds someone, he has the arm to deliver the ball. I continue to think that he's going to surprise a lot of NFL fans, even Bills fans, with what he does this season.

I find this quote very interesting: Anyone who doesn’t start off their scouting report by saying that guard Dru Samia plays with a mean streak has already failed to pinpoint his most dominant trait. He is an alpha who doesn’t back down from anyone. Sure, the entire line plays with that mentality, but Samia is on another level. He is probably the least-heralded guy on the Sooners’ offensive line, but when you turn the film on he stands out, and it starts with his attitude. He plays as if he hates anyone in an opposing jersey and will punish them through the whistle. Over the past year, there have been a half dozen times or more when McDermott or Beane or both (I don't recall who said it or when) said something about the Buffalo Bills are going to be known as a team that (and I'm paraphrasing) punishes people, that doesn't back down from anyone, that outhits every team in the league. They've said things like that. Then you see little things, like the Bills are interested in this guy, whose most outstanding trait is that he has that attitude. You see most many guys from last season's offensive line gone, but Teller, whose physicality stands out, remaining on the roster. You see guys like Duke Williams and Cole Beasley signed, who have demonstrated that they like to hit people and who play with an edge. When I watched Duke Williams video, his intensity reminded me of Hines Ward. Among the things that I like about McBeane is that this point is not lost on them. You can scheme all you want, you can collect superstar talents, you can talk about teamwork, togetherness and the process, but if you aren't going to hit people, block ferociously and tackle relentlessly, you aren't going to win consistently. I think that's a point that's often overlooked about the Patriots - they are physically tough. They hit all the time, and they tackle effectively. One of the things that made the Super Bowl so competitive this year was that the Rams came out prepared to hit the Pats as hard as the Pats hit them. It was a dog-fight from the beginning. I like that McBeane seem focused on this attribute as they assemble the team. Oh, yeah, that was one of the things that's been mentioned about Feliciano. His signing was one of the recent times this notion - intense physicality - was mentioned.

The Patriots' roster has been getting weaker and weaker as the years go by. It's a testament to Belichick's genius and how valuable Brady is to him. Belichick will restock and reinvent the team. Remember it happened when he drafted Gron k and Hernandez. It will happen again. It will continue to happen at least until Brady, and maybe not even then. Belichick will always be near the top competitively, so long as he has a quarterback.

I haven't read the entire argument between you and others, and it's off the point of this thread, but I have to say that what you say about Allen in the quotes post and about Allen vs. Manuel is on the money. Manuel didn't LOOK like a winner to me on his first season, but statistically he had a pretty good season, for a rookie, especially given the talent around him. Statistically, Allen wasn't nearly as good, but he LOOKED like a winner to me, so I'm hopeful. And your point about the short passing game is correct. Allen needs to improve his short and mid-range game. The Bills coaches have been clear about. And I think he will, because his problem was not that he couldn't complete the throws so much as it was that he didn't make the throws. The Bills want him to take the high percentage throw every time, instead of the 50% throw deep. Allen often ignored the outlet pass, and he isn't supposed to. That message will be drilled into him this year. It's also the reason they got Beasley.

Right, all around. I do think that McD wanted to pick his QB with his new GM. I think he directed the trade down and the decision to pass on Mahomes.

Yes, buy you said was the team had an overall lack of talent, and since we were talking about the team two years ago, when McD arrived, there wasn't a lack of talent. They had Gilmore, Wattkins, Dareus, Hughes, Kyle, Incognito. It wasn't the talent McD wanted, but if was talent.

I think it's pretty hard to make your case. Bills were 7-9 and 8-8 for the two years before those drafts, and they had crappy coaching except for Lynn in the second tear. How bad could the talent have been?

This. Plus Beane's stated objective that he builds through the draft. He wanted to change just about the entire roster, and it's impossible to replace it through the draft in even three years. So he needed guys to fill in. Last year he had no mone to being any real talent, so he did the best he could. Admittedly, he did pretty poprly on the receiver room last year, at least until Foster carme around. What I'm expecting is that the Bills will have two rookies starting in September and one or two more starting by November. That's 3-4 young guys. Add in maybe four free agents playing a lot - Morse, another lineman, Brown and Beasley. Then they will do it again in 2020 and then they will have their roster set.

As Buffalo said, I think extending Wood was about having veteran leadership. He was the only dependable veteran on the line, Richie being a perpetual questionmark. I think you are right about the "oh really" thing, except for this. I've been saying for more than a year that McD is a closet Belichick disciple, and Belichick has made a living on the "oh really" free agents. He wanted Beasley. He took Hogan. He took that one-year-wonder backup running back from the Bills. He took the Bills' tight end. He takes guys like that all the time. Once in a while he will pay really big for a Gilmore or a Welker, but most his free agent signings are "oh really" "guys. The reality of those signings is that some are good for a year or two and some bust in the first year. You keep taking them, keeping some and cutting some. You called it admitting mistakes. But the reality is that using that philosophy, you know you will have mistakes. What you're counting on is a decent yield. Of 50-60% of them work out, you're doing okay. Frankly, it's the same thing with draft picks. You want 100% yield in the first three rounds, but after that it's about yield.

Your post was about good performance for the investment. My post was about the pointlessness of that comparison. There is no stat that meaningfully captures the performance of players other than qbs. Nothing measures Beasley's route running or blocking, nothing measures Gore's pass protection or locker room presence. Even YP reception and YP carry aren't very useful measures of value. Putting dollar values on performance makes even less sense. Right. If Brown contributes meaningfully to Allen's success, then Brown was worth it regardless of his stats.

I think the question itself is meaningless. It's a team game, and who accumulates yards and points simply doesn't matter. Offensive total yards and total points and defensive total yards and total points are what matters. By far, the only individual stats that matter are the QBS stats. The relationship between a player's compensation and his stats is really, really pointless. If Shady gains 114 yards on the season and catches 12 passes, and if the Bills go 12-4, why Wil I care how much he was paid? It's a team game.

Thanks for this, and thanks to NyNole, too. PFF is far, far from being the definitive word on anything. People need to remember Kyle Williams being incredulous when he realized evaluations like PFF exist. He asked how anyone except a coach who knew what the player's assignment was could possibly evaluate how he did on a play. And there's a much more important point, and that is that offensive line play is very much a team thing. When a play succeeds, it's because the line succeeded as a UNIT. Whether the Bills line has improved will depend on how the coaches are able to get the line to succeed as a UNIT. Having said that, going from no one who was good at center to someone who is among the best is a huge upgrade. A guy who can read the defense and call assignments, as well as make all the blocks, will be a huge improvement alone. Morse will make the guards better just by being there.

That's the way I heard it. He didn't say anything like "we will continue to be in touch with his agent."

This is just your negative spin on that class. Davis they hoped would recover from injuries. Star has been, I think, exactly what they wanted. Bodine was signed to compete to start. Morse was signed this year to start. Big difference between those expectations. McCarron was supposed to be a veteran presence and compete to start. If the Bills had expected their free agent qb to start they wouldn't have stayed out of the free agent and just signed the last guy left. Ivory couldn't run behind the oline any better than Shady could. I think you may have had unrealistic expectations out of that class. I didn't. Many of them didn't disappoint me because I didn't expect much from them. Beane also didn't expect much from them. He has always said that you build through the draft and fill in with free agents.

I'm not down on him at all. I revere him. He brought pro football to Buffalo, kept it there when it was in his personal interest to move, assured it would stay when he died, and gave hundreds of millions of dollars to the City to boot. But he often was tight fisted and he generally didn't make good football decisions. Running a winning pro football franchise just wasn't something he was good at.

Yea, Thurman. Combat that nonsense. Every GM misses sometime. Wait until the draft. Then watch training camp. The Bills are going to be putting more talent on the field for the third consecutive season, and they will do it again next year too.

There is no doubt the franchise has changed dramatically. Yes, they haven't won yet, but the FRANCHISE has changed dramatically. To wit: 1. Ralph Wilson is gone. Great man, but not a successful owner. Was willing to spend only inconsistently. He insisted a positive bottom line, and that insistence got in the way of team building. Pegulas are completely different in that regard. 2. Russ Brandon is gone. 3. Brandon Beane has a clear focus, and he is extremely disciplined. He approach is thoughtful. For examole, McD wants Allen to focus on the short passing game, so Beane's gets one of the best short-game receivers in the league. Great focus. 4. McD is organized and has a system. His players love it and want to play for him. 5. The Bills are all in on a great young QB. Yes, he still must improve, but the Bills haven't had this kind of talent in the building since Bledsoe or maybe Kelly. That's dramatically different.

In his interview with John Murphy, Beane sounded to me like he is done with Ziggy. Didn't say It exactly, but his tone and how he said things sounded like the Bills have decided they aren't interested. Ziggy's price will have to come down.