Shaw66

Ctk - I think you nailed it. It simply makes no difference how a player got to the Bill's or whether the Bill's should have taken someone else. Right now he is a Bill and his future is all that matters. I'm with those who think he will make team, but this a critical season for him. He must be better than he has been. The OP stats are interesting. He was an average to below average #2. He needs to be a solid #2 or solid slot guy. And much will depend on Allen and the scheme.

You make some interesting points, but I don't agreement with a lot of your assessment of Zay. I think his hands and his route running are fine, and no no. 2 receiver gets separation on his own. He gets separation with scheme. Still, I agree about catch radius and contested balls, and for those reasons I agree that Duke could very well take the starting job from him. Better hands, competes better for the ball, better catch radius. The problem with your assessment is that it's hard to see how the Bills are going to add 3 or 4 guys good enough to take his spot on the roster. No rookie is likely to start other than a first or second round pick. Maybe there will be a good free agent pick up. But Zay's work ethic and understanding of the process, along with his success with Allen late in the season, all make me think that McD will want Zay on the team. If you said September 2020, I'd say you were probably right.

They will overspend for one veteran lineman who would be a leader of the o line. They want a leader in every room, and they don't have a leader on the o line. Dawkins is the leader in training. I agree about getting younger guys, but they need a leader.

Actually, I find that sometimes in these off-season comments he gives some pretty good insights into how they operate. Never gives you much about players or plans, but he does talk about how the process works, and that often helps me understand what they're doing. But you hae to listen carefully to get that stuff in between all the coach-speak.

You describe an approach, but Beane has been completely clear on multiple occasions that that is NOT his approach. Beane has said that he wants cap room to keep the good young players they have coming up in the system, not to spend on veteran players from other teams. The Bills got rid of players with big contracts not so much to have cap room as to clear the locker room of guys who don't fit into the system and the process. That explains why they kept Williams, and that's why Shady is still with the Bills and Dareus isn't. It isn't about talent and it isn't about cap room; it's about the kind of guys that McDermott wants to build on. I think if you asked Beane, he'd tell you that the only free agents he's really interested in are good players who fit and who are coming off their rookie contracts. The only more veteran players they're interested in are guys who would be great leaders in a position of need. McDermott said it - they want a leader, preferably a veteran, in every room. That's why, I think, they got Star - they got him to replace Kyle's leadership on the D line. They aren't going to be able to spend all of their cap room on guys coming off their rookie contracts, so they'll have cap left over. That's okay, from their point of view, because they're building long term. That extra cap room will come in handy as Lawson, White, Allen and Edmunds come off their contracts. Yes, that's a couple of years away, but that's what they're thinking. The guys who have big contracts on this team in five years will be a bunch of guys the Bills drafted in the first couple of rounds since McDermott arrived.

You and K-9 have it, I think. You need the best players you can get regardless of position. The only exceptions are when you're really, really deep. And at QB - you aren't taking a QB in the first round if you have your guy and a QB is BPA. For example, if the BPA for the Bills this year is a middle linebacker, you take him, even though you don't need a middle linebacker. Why? Because if the guy is THAT good, then you will find a place to play him and Edmunds and be happy about you did for the next four years. So what do the Bills do if the BPA this year is a QB? Trade back, that's what. Unless there's another guy on the board you rate only a tad behind your BPA, and his position isn't blocked on roster. And I think what Alpha said is not correct. It's true that teams each have their own boards, but those boards, as I understand, are not weighted in way toward need. They are strictly BPA. If you had a weighted board, when a GM called looking to trade for your pick, you have no way of knowing how valuable the pick is to him, because your board doesn't give you a true picture of who the GM is trading for. It also varies depending on where you are in the draft. There may be a big difference in the first round between the BPA and the player who fills your need, even though that player may be fifth on you list. At least by your analysis, the BPA is clearly a better football player than the guy four places behind on the list. On the other hand, if you're in the fifth round, the actual difference in talent between two guys five places apart on your board is (1) impossible to measure and in any case (2) not much difference at all. So in the fifth round, it's more like there are five or ten BPAs, because they're essentially the same in talent level. So there you may go mor toward need.

I think McB know what they're doing and what they want. I don't know if what they're doing will get the results we want, but they have a well defined idea of what they are doing and who they want. So the fact that this guy comes from a franchise that hasn't had a lot of success doesn't bother me. The guy wouldn't be coming if he didn't buy what McB are doing, and they wouldn't have taken him if he didn't look like a fit.

What if something happens while we're down?

Yeah. Read the the thread. A lot of posters have talked about Allen needing a reliable outlet receiver. He doesn't have to be NFL-special, he just has to know where to go, get there, and catch the ball when it arrives. James has demonstrated that he can do that.

Frankly, I think if you have a HOF running back, then he's going to be suited to your offense. I think last season was an aberration. I think in 2019 we will see the old Shady. Two reasons: 1. The Bills will have a better offensive line, with a better blocking scheme. How do I know that? I don't, of course, but I fully expect the Bills to put more talent on the line than they had last season. And I expect that they'll be better coached, because McBeane have been clear that the offensive line is a point of emphasis. In the McDermott system, everybody gets better, every day. 2. I expect the Bills' passing game to be good, and maybe even a nightmare, for teams to defend. I think we will see the Bills exploit Allen's arm by stretching the field vertically AND horizontally. The Bills are going to design a passing attack that demands that the defense defend every square yard forty yards downfield, sideline to sideline. That will include Shady as a receiver, but that's not the point. The point is something I said a few days ago, in this thread I think: Ask Thurman Thomas how he liked carrying the ball in an offense that could throw pretty much anywhere on the field. When you spread the defense as much as the K-gun did, and as much as I think McD and Daboll are planning to do, there are going to be open spaces to run the ball. How do I know that? I don't, but if you had a QB with brains and an arm like Allen, wouldn't YOU be throwing all over the field, short and long, wide and over the middle? I would. As I think about it, I would expect that we'll see run-pass options in the offense in 2019, for exactly that reason. I expect Daboll is going to challenge the defense with an effective passing game. He's going to send Allen to the line of scrimmage with some keys, put a guy in motion to see if it's zone or not, snap the ball and, based on Allen's keys, throw to the outside or give it to Shady. And, to bring it back to Jesse James, if Duck Williams and Zay Jones are effective and Foster continues to grow, with a second speed guy inserted as the third or fourth option, Jesse James and McCoy are going to be open over the middle a lot. There are a lot of reasons why the offense could be pretty poor again this season, but that's not what I expect. I expect a big, big improvement, because Allen will understand what he's supposed to do, and the skill guys will do the rest.

Yeah, I remember that. My sense of Shady is that he is fundamentally and firmly in the right place, character-wise and so far as McDermott is concerned. Shady just has these occasional lapses in judgment that make us scratch our heads and for which he always seems to be truly sorry. I think that McDermott doesn't expect his people to be perfect, and he can live with Shady not being perfect. All speculation on my part, but that's the way it seems to me. I was skeptical about Shady when he reacted so badly to the trade to Buffalo. Great talent, but I didn't want a whiner on the team. He's won me over.

I think Deek was correct in his entire post. It isn't moral high ground - it's that McD only wants guys who are 100% about team. And I agree with him about Shady, and I'll offer a few pieces of soft evidence. First, altho Shady has a penchant for pulling himself out of the game for a blow, or to temporarily deal with a nagging injury he wants to be on the field. Second, he doesn't complain. If anyone was entitled to complain about how a season was going, a Hall of Fame running back going through the Bills' 2018 schedule would have earned the right. It downright sucked for Shady and 2018. We heard essentially nothing from him. He was ready when the whistle blew, and he did whatever he was asked. Third, both McDermott and Beane, when asked at the end of the season whether Shady would be back for 2019, answered in a way that was almost dismissive of the question. They're too polite to say it, but it seemed like they were thinking "ARE YOU KIDDING???!!!" Their answers gave me the sense that they think (1) he's still a great running back and (2), if he's lost something, he's nevertheless a valuable leader on this team. Remember that Shady was the guy who had Watkins' back when Watkins had some nagging foot injury and wasn't playing the preseason. It was Shady, who WAS on the field, who said you keep the Ferrari in the garage until you need it. Don't be fooled by Shady's occasional off-season, off-the-field issues. Whenever I've seen him interviewed, he's come across as a thoughtful and well-intentioned guy. Comes out of a background different from mine, but still a quality guy; I can't prove anything, and of course I don't know what McBeane are thinking, but I think they believe Shady is an important locker room presence in 2019. And if I had to guess, his role is going to be the respected veteran telling all the kids on offense to do what Allen says. That is, he's going to be the moral muscle standing beside Allen takes control of the team. I think we saw some of that occasionally last year, and I think McBeane value that.

Is that you, Sean McDermott? I think that's exactly the Bills' reaction. Any guy who publicly puts his interest above the team is almost totally disqualified from being a part of the Bills. McBeane want guys who put team ahead of themselves, and they don't want to bet on guys who need retraining on that subject.

Quite a family tradition! Great. I saw Lanier and Murphy as freshmen playing at Erie County Community college. I had seats right on the baseline. Niagara's first possession. Calvin had the ball in the corner and Lanier had the baseline zone on that side, right in front of me. Lanier came out toward Calvin, Murphy faked, and Lanier reached with one hand and snatched the ball right out of Murphy's hands! Two Hall of Fame players just gettin to know each other at ECC. I went to the 1970 NCAA East Regionals in South Caroliina - Niagara and Villanova in the first game, St. Bonaventure and someone in the second. Two days later I was there when Lanier fell over Chris Ford and tore up his knee. And I was at the final four that year too, cheering for the Bonnies with Lanier lying in a hospital in Buffalo. The Bonnies were among the most courageous underdogs you'll ever see, playing Jacksonville and New Mexico State. Without Lanier, they stayed in both games. UCLA won it all, but I always thought the Bonnies were the only team in the country who could beat them. Great memories.

I see it the same way.

People aren't saying that to put him down. They're saying he will make plays and is serviceable but he is limited.

That's interesting. Thanks. But I don't think if Edelman as a strength. I think of that part of their offense as something almost any team COULD do, but they haven't spent the time and made the commitment to do. That offense is the result of years of hard work, repetition and study. I don't think that offense succeeds so much because of Edelman's physical strengths as his intelligence and determination, couple with Brady's. I'm not saying what they do isn't impressive. I think what they do is fundamentals taken to the max. I think that's how the Pats run the ball, also. It's every man making a block, a good solid block, every man knowing his assignment, every man knowing how to adjust on the fly. And it's Brady orchestrating. The Pats make more or less EVERYTHING their strength. It's hard to beat them attacking a perceived weakness because they always know how to hurt you by adjusting to take what you're giving. The Pats have a brand new game plan every week. They are a man team, but when the opponent calls for it, they're a zone team. They attack with the run this week, with the short pass next week, or with screens or whatever. Every week they learn to do something else, and the more they do it, the more versatile they get. We may already just be into semantics. I've thought for a year that McD is a closet Belichick fan, and I think McD thinks he can have a team with a command of the game that can win consistently like the Pats. I think McD would say that, yes, he will take advantage of the strengths he has, but the foundation of his winning will team principles that make the team strong everywhere, rather than individual talents whose strengths will determine outcomes.

I see it the same way. I'm going to be very happy if Allen completes 30-40 simple catches to some tight end over middle this year. That means other things are working the way they should.

The reason I like him is anecdotal. It just seemed to me that there were a lot of times where James bailed Ben out of difficult spots by getting to the right spot and catching the ball. That makes him better in my mind than Clay, who (1) never seemed to show the same ability to settle in the open spot and (2) seemed to drop some easy balls. As others have said, Allen needs a reliable guy to bail him out, and James seems to me to be one of those guys.

I think you and Kirby and I all have the same vision for the offense, given Allen's greatest strengths. Or at least a similar vision. I think ideally the offense needs two deep threats. Or at least one really good deep threats and a couple of guys with enough speed to get deep when the scheme creates the opportunity. Clearly, the first deep threat is a wideout (whether Foster is that guy remains to be seen - it isn't enough to have deep speed, you have to be able to run disciplined routes and catch the ball. I'm hopeful, but let's wait and see). Ideally, the second guy is also a wideout - a deep threat on either flank is what really tests the safeties and opens the middle as you describe. The second guy who can "get deep" can be a tight end or even a versatile running back. I think you're correct that if the Bills had two good deep threat wideouts, James may not have the foot speed to take advantage of the opportunities the wideouts would create. He clearly would be good enough to get you 5 to 12 yard completions all day long against a stretched out defense, but he's not going to get the chunk plays that Kelce gets. But I'm squarely in the camp that says such a player, a premier tight end, is more a luxury than a necessity. If you have one, fine, and he takes some pressure off the wideouts to produce and loosens up the defense in other areas, but he isn't a necessity. And I think, but I don't know, that featuring the tight end tends to draw the defense toward the middle, which may help your wideouts but it doesn't do any favors for your running backs. Just ask ThurmanThomas what it meant to play with two burners and a third receiver in the slot, each of whom was a headache for the defense. I'm sure he'd tell you that Lofton, Beebe and Reed created those monster years for him by clearing defenders out of the middle.

Thanks. Now I'm really interested in it. I'll take a look.

I have a truly warm spot in my heart for Canisius. Not that it meant much to me as a kid - I went to public school in the suburbs, the Catholic schools didn't play in the public school leagues (I don't think they played in the Sectionals, either), so I never got into the Catholic High School scene. Don't know if I even knew anyone who went there. My lasting memory of Canisius College basketball (and how irrelevant it was), was going to a Canisius-St. Bonaventure doubleheader at the Aud. It was sold out. First game was the Bonnies (with Lanier) and somebody. When the game ended, 2/3 of the fans got up and left and filled the bars in downtown Buffalo to watch Niagara (with Calvin) playing at the Palestra. Nobody except you secret society members stayed for the Canisius game. But as I've been away, and as I've seen resumes from different people in Buffalo and gotten to know people there through various connections, I've been impressed at how Canisius has built a significant part of the backbone of Buffalo. Secret society or not, Canisius has for generations graduated people whose strength and character have been an important part, for all the right reasons, of the survival and rebirth of Buffalo. It's pretty impressive.

I was typing while your were posting this. This is a really clear statement of what your thinking, and it makes sense. I think Beliichick and McB still would disagree with you and stay raising your weaknesses is more important, but they'd definitely agree that their goal is to get better at everything. If you haven't listened to the podcast that HappyDays linked to, I'd recommend it. It does have only nuggets, and this woman is kind of young and starry-eyed, but it's very interesting to hear her talk, briefly, about McD's approach. It is ALL about the team. She says that everything that goes on around him is about everyone getting better. What is Canisius? Sorry. I couldn't resist. I've been gone from WNY for a LONG time, so long that Canisius is starting to look like a word out of some foreign language.

WOW. I've been wondering you say thoughtful things but come out in a really different place than I, and then you explain about Strengthfinders. I'll have to look at it. Reading your explanation of why you think Allen has to bomb away based on the strengthfinders philosophy makes a lot of sense and explains your views on Jesse James. I'm absolutely certain that McDermott would disagree with the Strengthfinders approach. If he believed Strenthfinders, he never would have drafted Allen, because he's always known he wants a more conservative offense. He would have drafted Josh Rosen instead. I suspect there's a whole dialog in the business management world about whether Strengthfinders is a better approach than the philosophy that teaches that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. That philosophy says build your entire team to be strong, rather than build your strengths and don't worry so much about your weaknesses. (That philosophy didn't work so well for the French in World War II. They build the strongest imaginable World I defensive line to keep the Germans out. The Germans looked at it, so how strong the defense was, and concluded that it might be strong against foot soldiers but it could be overrun by tanks.) Belichick is definitely anti-Strengthfinders. His philosophy is that he's going to beat you by stopping your greatest strength. So against the Rams (and against a Josh -Allen-deep-ball offense), he's going to take away the deep ball and force the QB to find short passes in the seams. He's going to force you to win using what you're not so good at. His offense is also anti-Strengthfinders. His offense rarely has been truly dominating in one aspect of the game, except perhaps the couple of years when Brady, with Moss's help one year, was throwing the ball all over the place. Most years, Belichick beats you with the run until you stop iit, then he beats you with the short pass until you stop it, then he beats you with the long pass. Belichick's teams have no weak links. Of course, Belichick, great as he is, doesn't have a monopoly on how to do things. However, I think the evidence is pretty clear that McDermott's approach is similar to Bill's and the opposite of Strengthfinders. You can argue that McDermott's approach is wrong, and the fact that you have a book that explains and promotes a contrary philosophy makes me think you've got some good arguments on your side, but I think that until the Bills change head coaches, you're not going to get a Strenthfinders approach. McDermott's philosophy is that a true team, with everyone working to do his job on relying on everyone else to do his, will outperform a team that wins because of one or a few superstars. In the NBA, a few superstars can dominate, but in the NFL it's more or less impossible to get enough superstars on one team to dominate. I think if McDermott were frank with us on this subject, he'd say that they drafted Allen because of his competitiveness, his team-orientation and his brains, and that they viewed his throwing ability as an additional plus. (My wildest dreams for Allen are that he will be the kind of QB like Manning and QB, a coach-on-the-field who can outthink the defenses AND with perhaps the best arm the NFL has ever seen. I'd like to think that's the vision McD had when they drafted him.) You'd say take him because of his arm and make the rest of it work. Bringing it back to James and a phrase that I think you used, James is just a guy. In the Strengthfinders approach, you're not looking for just a guy. In McDermott's approach (except for QB and MLB), he thinks he can win with a bunch of just-a-guys, each of whom is desperately determined not to be the weakest link. It's not that he doesn't want guys with special talent, he does. Special talent gives you the opportunity once in a while on the field to take advantage of those talents to help the team. Gronk's a special talent, but the Pats don't run their offense through him. They use his talents to hurt you every once in a while, but most of the time they're telling Gronk to be just a guy, blocking, running routes, etc. I think McDermott would say that, other than QB and MLB, it doesn't matter so much where the extra talent is. He'd say it doesn't have to be tight end. So I'd think the Bills' view on James probably is he's good as just-a-guy, and he can contribute until we happen to get a Strengthfinders-kind-of-guy. And I think that approach explains why Beane says so adamantly that his approach in the draft is strictly best player available. Especially because they seem to have their QB and MLB, McBeane don't really doesn't care which positions are manned with special talent. (Belichick has shown that lock down corner is the one position where he will chase special talent.) I think McDermott tells Beane (and I think they've told us this) to get guys with the right character traits. When you have a chance to get special talent with those traits, do it, and McD doesn't really care all that much what position the guy plays. If he has a guy with special talent at LG, fine, he'll figure out how to take advantage of it. If it's at DT, fine. Safety, fine. Whoever the guy is, and whatever his talent his, he has to be willing to play within the scheme. That's why Gronk has been so valuable - he's a superstar at his position, playing completely within a team concept. Thanks for explaining where your thinking is coming from. It makes it easier to understand your point of view.

Interesting that when asked who are the young leaders she went immediately to Allen, Edmunds and Dawkins. I didn't know Dawkins had locker room respect. And how perfect that the qb and m l b have become leaders already.