Shaw66

Nice subjective reading. He said "we all made mistakes." He included himself. Not just McDermott. There is no question the team wasn't prepared for the moment, and that of course is on McDermott. However, he said "we all made mistakes, and the clear implication is that a lot of different people could have done things differently.

My creation based on what he's said year after year. It's no mystery.

There are no mysteries. Beane has always been very clear about how he will handle the draft. The problem is that the fans have their own views about needs and who's available in the draft, so they concoct all sorts of theories about what Beane is going to do. Here's what Beane is going to do: 1. Evaluate the players available and rank them. 2. Look for players the Bills covet at any position who may be falling to where the Bills pick. 3. Maybe trade up to get one they like. 4. Do all of this with an understanding, THEIR understanding, of what the Bills need. Their understanding and ours may be very different. This season, in particular, their understanding of whether the Bills need a receiver and what kind of receiver may be very different from ours. Their understanding of where to get what they need may also be very different from ours.

This is the point where your argument, and others, go wrong fundamentally. There is no evidence that Coryell COULD NOT win the big game. The evidence is that he DID NOT win the big game. Marvin Lewis DID NOT win it, either. There is no logic that proves that McDermott cannot win it. None. McDermott is virtually universally recognized by knowledgeable pro football observers as one of the best coaches in the league. It is only disgruntled Bills fans who think he isn’t. And one more thing. People who argue that McDermott has failed because he hasn't won with a great QB are wrong. Last season was the first season where Allen began to run the offense like a great QB, and he didn't do it consistently. He's improving, but he still can't do it like Mahomes. And if you watch the video of Kincaid's targets, it's clear that Allen isn't accurate enough. McDermott's QB is good but not good enough to support an indictment of McDermott's coaching ability.

Jauron wasn't a risk taker. McDermott is, at least in some ways. Jauron wasn't ever going to win, even with Allen. Unless he changed his stripes.

There is no "breaking point." Such things can't be predefined. If I'm the owner, I have to make a change if he loses the team, that's for sure. But each year I evaluate his performance, the team's performance. The question never is how many times he's failed to win the Super Bowl. The question always is whether I think he can win the Super Bowl. Lately, every team has failed unless the QB's name is Mahomes or Brady. The Rams broke through for a year; does that make McVay great? No, it means everything fell right for one year and he won. I'm not firing Shanahan because he didn't beat Mahomes and Reid, and I'm not firing McDermott, either. I never thought Dungy was a very good coach. The Colts stayed with him longer that I would have. I don't have the same feeling about McDermott. The team is very good, the players love him, and he's young. Coaches get better with experience, just like players do. The difference is that with players, more experience means your body is getting older and failing. Coaches don't have to worry about their bodies failing. McDermott will be a better coach at 60 than his is at 50, and he's better at 50 than he was at 45. Until he gives me reason to go another direction (and as I said, not winning it all yet is not a reason), I'm happy to watch him get better.

I think you're wrong. Your evidence that he's feeling the pressure is based on you evaluation of his performance in a press conference. He's ALWAYS been bad in press conferences. He's uncomfortable, he doesn't like it, and he isn't good at figuring out how to give useful answers to questions without saying too much. It's ridiculous, meaning it's fair to subject you to ridicule, for you to compare McDermott to Dick Jauron. McDermott has built a perennial top-five favorite to win the Super Bowl, and Jauron went 7-9 three years in a row before the team fell apart. There is NO meaningful comparison. You're free to not like McDermott, but you're not going to convince anyone who knows football. The 49ers aren't firing Shanahan and the Bills aren't replacing McDermott.

But you're ignoring the fundamental point, which is that almost everyone plays two deep safeties, and they play all kinds of complicated man-zone combinations, all of which are designed to stop the deep ball. It doesn't really matter if you have John Brown II, because he's going to find himself double covered most of the times he goes deep. That's what's happened to the league in the days since Brown left. It's not like without a deep threat teams are shutting down the Bills' passing game. They were seventh in yards and 8th in TDs in their passing game. That's not bad. They were fourth in total yards and 6th in scoring. As I noted in an earlier post, the teams that win and were effective in the playoffs don't feature a John-Brown type threat. Instead, they force the defense to stop the run and the pass from sideline to sideline and from 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage and 60 yards downfield, and they do it not by having a classic deep threat. They do it by stressing the defense with ins, outs, deep crossing patterns, occasional fly patterns when they get the look they want, etc. They don't do it by splitting a speedster out wide and threatening the defense on every play with the prospect of a fly pattern. They have receivers who are fast enough to get deep when the offense is running the right patterns against the defense. So, what the Bills need at receiver, I think, is a smart receiver, quick, good hands, and good speed. That's why they got Samuel. He's fine. Now, the Bills need a replacement for Diggs in the next year or two, and I'm not suggesting that they're good for now with Samuel. And more speed is always better than less speed. But speed isn't the most important criterion for wideouts the way the game is being played now, and the notion that the Bills "need" a guy with great deep speed just isn't correct, in my opinion. In some ways, it's comparable to running backs. In previous eras, people used to think that great speed was essential for someone to be a great running back. People don't think that any more. Yes, it's great if you have a running back who can make the cuts, break the tackles, catch passes out of the backfield AND has great speed, but if he can do all the other things without having great speed, people are fine with that. Nobody is saying McCaffrey isn't great because he doesn't have break away speed, and no one was troubled by the fact that Thurman couldn't outrun the fastest defenders.

Thanks. Good stuff. Where I differ is that for me there's a difference between stretch the field and get deep. Diggs and Davis got deep but weren't classic burners. Shakir too. I think that kind of speed is all you need. It's enough to keep the safeties deep, even though they can't just blow by corners.

I agree with this. I don't see how we can just assume center is taken care of. Guy hasn't played there, so we simply can't know. And I don't think we can assume much of anything about Edwards, either. It all might work out, it makes sense, I get it, but it's two changes on the offensive line, two changes from a line that performed well last season. And I absolutely agree about safety. I don't see how they've gotten better there. Rapp wasn't better last season than either of the two vets, and I don't think Edwards was either. I'm one who believes more help is coming, and it won't be a rookie.

I've been thinking about this "stretch-the-field" notion for a few days or weeks now. I keep thinking about it when I see posts that want us to return to the days of John Brown. We all loved watching Josh bomb away. The reality is that the league has changed. Total scoring per game in the league is down six points since 2020. Rich McKay, who heads the competition committee, says it's down because everyone is playing two-high safeties and because they're calling fewer defensive penalties. We all know how interference is called has changed a lot in the last few years. Defenders get away with a lot of contact, including on deep balls, making it that much harder to complete long throws. A few years ago, pretty much all contact was called, which made the defenders play off the receivers, and that's the era where John Brown could thrive. Yes, they've had injuries, QBs out, etc., but the guys we like to think of as elite receivers, the tall guys who can stretch the field, are not dominating any more, especially in the playoffs. Hill and Lamb put up big numbers, but their teams aren't winning. Who are the receivers in the winning offenses? 49ers, Bills, Lions, even the Chiefs don't feature deep threats. They all have guys who can get deep, not guys who "stretch the field." Why? Because the defenses are designed to stop those guys getting deep, and those defenses create opportunities for smart, talented, versatile receivers, like the guys you see on the 49ers, Bills, Lions, and Chiefs. Shakir would have been useless five years ago, because he's not as physical as Beasley. Five years ago, defenses were designed to stop guys playing like Edelman, and Beas was one of the few who could thrive in it anyway. Shakir couldn't. But with defenses now shutting down the deep ball, guys like Shakir - smart, quick, good hands - can get production in middle of the field. Maybe they'll tinker with the rules again, and maybe we'll see the return of quick-strike offenses, but until that happens, teams have to be built for the way the game is being called. That means a different breed of receivers are the guys who will be effective. And that is what Beane was talking about.

No, it doesn't, but the point is about how you acquire talent. Free agency is a much better market for proven young talent. It's a lot simpler to sign those giluys in free agency than ti draft them. Well over half the players drafted in the last three rounds in 2018 are out of the league. Three of the first rounders are gone. It's a no brainer that the chances of getting a good long-term player are much, much better in the first round, even if you have multiple late round picks.

First, the Bills didn't draft Poyer and Hyde. More to the point, I'm not saying you can't find useful players, even good ones, in the later rounds. I'm saying if you have a good roster, and the Bills do, there's a limit to how many of those rookies you can keep. The Bills are very unlikely to keep several late round picks from this draft. When they go to your practice squad, they get poached. A first round pick is a high percentage opportunity to get long-term talent on the team.

If I knew a lot of statistics I could prove this is incorrect. All I know is t odds of getting a star with a late first round puck are better than with three later round picks combined. You named 10 great players taken in the 6th and 7th. That's 10 out of more than 1200 (64 picks, 20 years) or 1 out of 120. Chances of getting a great player are much better late in the first round. By you logic I'd trade my first and second every year. That's why the trade value chart is skewed heavily to the early picks. And it definitely compounds the problem. If you have a solid roster, it's better to come to camp with a few good rookies than a lot of promising guys, because you won't keep all those promising guys. Bad roster, sure, give me a boatload of fourth rounders to keep, because I can use them somewhere. Good roster, no.

Love it!

You're right! Watch the Cover 1 video. The guy has great strength, standing up and holding his ground, then uses his hands to slip the block one way or the other to bring down the running back. Over and over he does it.

Of course, but trading back in the first round isn't Beanes style. He's traded up four times in the first round in six years. Allen, Edmunds, Elam, Kincaid. The fools in Las Vegas have them fourth. I'd say they're a contender.

I think Beane's ideas of who he wants in the first round regularly surprise us. Both position and identity are surprises.

Beane could do anything but he's shown he's prone to trading up, not down. The Bills aren't going to keep 11 rookies, for sure, so unloading some picks is essential. Trading back compounds the problem. I expect another trade up, like last season, to get a solid starter they really like. Not ahuge move - they don't have the capital for that - but two three or four spots.

And the TDs are of little concern to me, at least not yet. TDs don't happen all that often, relative to receptions, so a statistical variation in TDs per reception is not uncommon. Davis caught four TDs in one game. That didn't mean Davis was great; it just meant in that game, against that defensive scheme, Allen was finding Davis. Plus, as I said earlier, I think red zone scoring has a lot to do with how well the QB and receiver communicate. Diggs has had a lot of red zone success, and Beasley did, too, and both were based on their communication with Allen. The spaces are tight, the timing is critical, and the receiver's understanding of how the defense works also is critical. I think we'll see Kincaid improve in that area. Kelce went 5-5-4 TDs in his first three years playing. When he got older, and when Mahomes arrived, is when his TD production went up.

Thanks for this. I don't know anything about strength building and conditioning, so I certainly won't argue with anything you say here. My comments were based only on my impressions looking at the guy. He seems a little undersized for a tight end. Now, of course, his current size allows him to be more mobile than the average tight end, so I don't know if added weight would make him less effective. Knox isn't your quintessential blocking tight end, but he has a body that seems to be more of the prototype for modern tight ends, and I think it might help Kincaid to build himself up to be at least a bit more like Knox. I also think a lot of guys come out of college not having built their strength particularly well. Linemen, particularly, often get to the NFL needing a year or two of learning technique and body building. I don't know for a fact, but I think there's a big difference between the programs that Alabama, Ohio State and a few other schools run and the programs run by a lot of the other schools. Kincaid walked on at San Diego State after being primarily a basketball player, and transferred to Utah, which is a nice program but not elite. So, I wouldn't be surprised if pro weight trainers in Orchard Park looked at him concluded that they could put him on a program that might add weight, or at least redistribute it, and build strength. They didn't have time to do that in his rookie year; this off-season was the first window they had. As for Kelce, well, every player is different. However, according to listed weights, Kelce carries the ten pounds that I think Kincaid might add. Bottom line for me is that I don't worry about it. The Bills and Kincaid will figure out what they think is best for him, and he'll work himself into the condition, including weight and strength, that they think is best.

I used to believe that take, too. I think it was true, but I think as the team has grown, things have changed. One thing McDermott and Beane said when they got here, something that I didn't understand, and I still don't understand, is that as players learn the system and come back for year two, they play at higher level and learn more. Collectively, the team's intelligence and understanding of the system grows from year to year. There is a team learning curve, and somehow the veterans pull the newcomers up the curve, so that things it took Poyer and Hyde years to learn, for example, are learned by Hamlin and the like in a year or two. I don't understand how that works, but it apparently does. The result is that when the team was playing at a lower level, it was harder for rookies to get into the lineup, because the veterans were still working their own way up the learning curve. Now that the team has matured, it gets easier. to pull guys along. So, Kincaid and Torrence both walked into camp and pretty quickly were able to play with the vets. It's what we saw with the Patriots. Year after year, some guy would get injured for the Patriots and some rookie you've never heard of would move into the lineup and play just fine. Why? Because Belichick's system somehow worked to have the vets pull the rookies up to their level. It's a beautiful thing.

I have a lot of confidence in Beane and McDermott in player selection. They have a very good understanding of the kind of players they need at each position, and they do a good job at figuring out which available players fit. (That's what's so shocking about Elam.) I think they knew exactly what they were getting in Kincaid and how they were going to use him. I think people who thought he would be below 500 yards misperceived how good McDermott and Beane are at this. Receivers don't have huge trouble transitioning from college to the pros, so it was more or less a no-brainer that Kincaid would play a lot and catch a lot of balls. That's what they got him for, and they knew he could do it. As I said in the other thread, I think he needs to bulk up a bit. Mostly what I think he needs to improve is his route running, particularly as plays break down. I mean, he runs all those short routes pretty nicely, but he still has work to do connecting with Allen. The guys who play close to the QB - the tight ends and slot guys - can become really valuable when they develop a high level of communication with the QB, like we see with Kelce and Mahomes, and like we saw with Allen and Beasley. I think Kincaid has more to learn and will benefit from another year with Allen. I also think he'll benefit if Brady is as creative as we hope.

I think you can make the case that the Bills could play the season (barring injury) with guys currently on the roster, but I don't think the 22 starters actually are on the roster. In the first place, it's quite likely that their first and second round picks will start, if not in September, at least by November. Just off the top of my head, I'd say this: Maybe the DT starters, technically, are on the roster (Jones and Oliver), but the rotation guys are like starters, and I'd guess there's another DT coming, and an edge. I think a starting safety is coming, somehow (unless my theory about Taron Johnson moving turns out to be correct, in which case the safeties are on the roster, but one of the three starting corners is not). I don't think the starting wideout is on the roster. I just don't see the Bills going with Diggs-Samuels-Shakir. Maybe Shorter comes out of nowhere, but I doubt it. There might be a guard who shows up. Whether all those guess are right, I don't know. Only one of them has to be right to prove that all the starters are not yet on the roster.

Alabama is where you go to find late-round picks and undrafted free agents. They recruit more of the best athletes in the country than almost anyone.