Shaw66

This may be the longest thread that I never posted in. Or did I?

Thanks, Gunner. Excellent stuff. I think you responded to me a few weeks ago about how many can't-miss players there are. My sense is that usually there are five or six can't miss guys, and three or four more who are very close. When the Bills were picking at 10 or 12, I was always disappointed to be outside of range for the can't-miss guys, but I knew that the Bills still would be getting a quality guy. This year, it seems that it would be really disappointing to be at 10 or 12. It's hard to find good value. In an odd way, it's a good year to be drafting at the end of the first round.

Buffalo is a small market. Small market players don't get promoted in the media unless they win Super Bowls and MVPs like Favre and Rodgers. It's a simple truth.

I don't know, so I didn't vote. I do expect, however, that the Bills will not pick at 27. Beane will trade that pick, up or down.

Forget whether he's done or not. Forget how good he was or might still be. Just ask yourself how many other Bills tweet like this. Answer: None. Beasley doesn't fit in. He has a tendency to become an irritant way beyond his value. It just isn't the Bills way.

PM Tuco. For you, I'm sure it's free.

Good read! Its a lot of fun, fast paced. Nice, job, Tuco.

The thing is that people have feelings about people like the Pegulas, and they need to do something. It's not about giving something to the Pegs or violating their privacy; it's about satisfying the needs of others to do something to help themselves feel better.

I have nothing to say.

I agree. Plus Hines. No weak sisters there. But we've heard nothing. Did Murray come and go?

Cook, Hines, Murray, Harris. I'm good with that. Better power backs than the Bills have had in several years. Better speed backs, too. McDermott apparently realized that he can't get the job done with a tweener like Motor.

After the real draft happens, will prizes be awarded here to the team that got the most picks correct? This thing is great! Congratulations to Virgil and all.

That's always the way it's seemed to me. I paid a lot more attention to the draft when the Bills were picking in the top 10, and I always thought that at 10 the Bills were just outside of the premier-player range. I haven't paid attention this season, but it's noticeable that no one is talking guys as absolute locks.

How many can't miss guys do you usually see in the draft? Five or six?

It's just in the nature of the draft. The measure of how difficult it is to project college players into the pros is how many times the professionals - the GMs and coaches - get it wrong. Their jobs are riding on the quality of their picks, they have every incentive to get it right, and they miss a lot.

Yeah. Amazing steal where they got him.

Well, I think it's predictable. I mean, there are only so many places you can run from where the TE lines up. The problem is that most of the defensive players must be deployed elsewhere in order to defend other threats. Wideouts can't go left or right, because the sideline is there. But they have speed, so they threaten you deep, and your safeties have to cheat to help. Still, the wideout routes are somewhat limited. If you have a tight end who can run, his routes too are predictable, but there are a lot more of them. Kelce killed Edmunds a couple of years ago. It was simple - run into Kelce's area, move Mahomes in the pocket to force Edmunds to slide one way or another, cut Kelce in the opposite direction, BINGO! It was simple, and it's predictable if you're prepared for it. Some other defender has to be available to shade to Kelce as he makes his break. When that happens that defender will get a pick or a near pick, and the Chiefs will have second thoughts about doing that. That tactic creates a weakness someplace else, but Mahomes has to recognize it, and he has to recognize the NEXT defender who is rotating to cover THAT weakness. So, I think it's predictable but it isn't easy to defend. I'm sure McDermott will tell you that you have to mix it up. Yes, use White on him sometimes. Double him once in a while. Disguise defenses. Throw an occasional defensive wrinkle in there, something you haven't done before. And, if you're good at changing it up like that, you slow down Mahomes a bit, so it's important to have pass rushers getting home, because Mahomes slowing down doesn't help if he isn't getting tackled or at least hit in the backfield.

I don't even know half of these players, but the Chiefs crushed the 49ers in 2022, and Kelce had 6 receptions for 98 yards. That extrapolates to a 1600-yard season. Jimmie Ward had two tackles and zero passes defensed. I really doubt all of these guys stop Kelce.

Some good points here. Yes, we've seen White on Gronk, because the Pats didn't have great threats on the outside. Haven't seen White on Kelce because White didn't play against Kelce in 2022, and in 2021 the Bills couldn't afford to bring White inside because the Chiefs featured Hill on the outside. As I said, I think team defense slows Kelce, and part of the mix and match that the Bills defense might do in 2023 is to put White on Kelce occasionally. Study the Chiefs' tendencies, and on an occasional third down, flip White and Johnson. Maybe even go some sort of box and one, with White one-on-one and the remaining back six in some sort of zone or match-up zone, to borrow the basketball concepts. Not a steady diet, but change up from time to time to give Mahomes a look he hasn't seen or planned for. You're right that no one else has a real chance one on one. Edmunds was the ideal linebacker, or Milano, to try it, and they couldn't do it. Kelce's good enough to demand corner cover skills. Corners are too small for him, but as you say, elite corners can make up for the lack of size with cover skills and ball skills.

I really think this is the wrong question. Kelce is not some kind of super talent who beats people one on one all day long. Kelce is entirely the product of scheme and play calling. What he is good at is recognition and thinking along with his quarterback. He's successful like Gronk, but for a completely different reason. Gronk was a matchup nightmare because of his size and his relatively good speed and movement. Kelce is a matchup nightmare because their offense gives him route options that allow him to run to open space, and he's very good at recognizing those options and knowing that his QB will see it too. He has good mobility and a good brain. In fact, a good comparison is Beasley from a couple of years ago. Beasley was unguardable on his routes for a reason similar to why Kelce is so tough: He started in the middle of the field, so his options were both left and right and middle, and he was good at reading those options. Allen was good at finding him. That's what Kelce does, not as quick as Beas, but what he lacks in quickness he makes up with size. Running routes from the middle of the field is a big advantage to a receiver in the sense that he has the whole field to work with. Teams don't like putting their wideouts in there because it's too dangerous, too likely to have your little guy get banged up by someone he doesn't see coming. Beas and other guys like him are really tough. Kelce has the size to play from the middle, and the route running ability of a decent #2 receiver, and he takes advantage of being able to play from there. Yes, someone can stop him, but you have to over-commit to stop him. You need a guy with cornerback skills and linebacker size, and those guys generally don't exist. Some teams used to double-team Gronk sometimes, and you can double Kelce and take him away, too. Problem with doubling him is that it leaves your defense too exposed, because you're taking two guys out of your defensive center. Doubling a wideout doesn't expose you in the same way. So teams didn't double Gronk a lot, and they don't double Kelce. Beas generally didn't get doubled for the same reason, and because he didn't hurt you deep like Gronk and Kelce do. I think you have to try to limit Kelce with scheme. You need to bring different people at him at different times, you need to disguise defenses, you need to give Mahomes looks that make him fail to see a defender that can make a play. That is, it's team defense that can slow Kelce, not a player.

I think this is the important point. I'm not anything like an NFL-caliber strategic analyst, and I have to admit that I've never quite understood how McDermott sees defensive strategy, but it's obvious that he doesn't think it's necessary to have a downhill thumping middle linebacker. What he seems to think is the perfect middle linebacker is a Tremaine Edmunds who is somewhat better attacking the run and blitzing than Edmunds is. If he wanted a true run-stopping MLB, they wouldn't have drafted Edmunds or stuck with him as long as they did. Instead, what McDermott seems to want is two Milano's playing linebacker. Two guys who, as you say, play sideline to sideline, who attack the run, who can blitz. And that's what you and I see in Sanders. He isn't perfect, by any means, and he'd be another project like Edmunds, which begs the question whether you can continue to waste years trying to build the perfect linebacker. He looks to me like he can play the position the way McDermott wants. Whether he can do it at the level McDermott and Beane want is something that Beane and his team will figure out. If he's the guy, then Beane's job is to go get him.

I don't see it. As others have said, Beane really doesn't like trading picks from future years, so there's that. Beyond that, I'm thinking that Beane and McDermott are more comfortable with their existing personnel than most of us fans are. I'm not saying they're right, because I certainly think they need more offensive line help. I'm saying that whether they're right or wrong, that's what they think. There's a current thread with a link to video of some ESPN guy saying the Bills are obviously still the team to beat, or one of the teams to beat. It's important to remember that. The Bills do not have a personnel crisis - they are a very good team trying to get better, and they have somewhat limited resources. I don't know anything about the pool of guys coming out of college, but all I see is that it's a relatively weak class. If that's true, Beane knows it, and I think knowing it's a weak class will make Beane MORE reluctant to trade up. If it's a weak class, he's probably less likely to make a bold move. But what do I know? As in previous years, I'm going to sit and watch, and then I'll try to understand what Beane was thinking.

I guess I already did. Sorry.

But I LIKE lurid effects.

$13 on Amazon. I just ordered my copy! Buy it and support a great Bills fan. Amazon says this: "This book contains adult scenes and situations that may not be suitable for all audiences." That probably means he included the Music City Miracle.