SCBills

I saw a rumor account float AJ Epenesa, Curtis Samuel and 3 1st Round Picks for Micah Parsons. And honestly, (it won’t happen) but I’d do that. Parsons, Rousseau and Hoecht would be a monster trio for the foreseeable future. We’ve already spent a ton of draft capital in surround Ed with DT’s. Our two outside CB spots are theoretically locked down with Benford/Hairston. I’m assuming we extend one of McGovern or Torrence which gives us 3 strong pillars of an OL with Josh, Cook long term and Palmer, Shakir and Coleman all long term. If all goes well, add Kincaid. So for the next 3 years, if your Beane evaluating this, he’s thinking we will only really need to be addressing IOL, LB, Safety & WR in terms of expiring contracts and question marks. All positions that high end talent can be found on Day Two.

Eventually the Democrats need to pivot. This isn’t sustainable. Their net -4M in voters to the Republicans in the past few years and are losing support in every Gen Z male demo. Young white men registering as Republicans in unprecedented numbers, along with 5-10% increases for R’s in the black and hispanic young male demo and a massive surge amongst young Muslim men. The Democrats are quite literally becoming branded as solely the party of single white women and black women. Men - Republican Married Women - Republican Working Class - Republican The only person not doubling down on this doom spiral for Dems is Gavin Newsom, but it remains to be seen if that soulless political demon can garner support in the Rust Belt and Southern/Sun Belt states. If he can’t, he’s unelectable. But at least, given his sociopathic tendencies, he’s able to separate from the suicide pact every other prominent Dem seems to have in appealing solely to activists, single white women and black folks.

Are we capable of doing a mid season trade for a Safety? Every talking head seems to think it’s take half a season to ramp up the ability to play Safety in McDermott’s Defense. Any other position, sure.. but Safety has this extra layer of complexity to it at all times.

Elijah Moore should make this team because this is about the third time I’ve seen a clip of him working the DB silly for a huge gain, potential long TD and our backup QB doesn’t see him or can’t get it to him.

Call me crazy, but I’m starting to buy into our Top 3. Maybe that all comes crashing down in a couple weeks against Baltimore, but I’m buying into the hope that Coleman is going to be a weapon and that Palmer has another gear with a change of scenery. I also think Kincaid either breaks out this year or is a dud. I don’t really see any in-between.

Let’s say, best case scenario.. Bishop pulls a Bernard and becomes a plus level Safety. Does anyone trust Rapp/Bishop to stay healthy all season? Due to Rapp’s play style and Bishop’s injury history since entering the league, we must have one of the most brittle Safety duos in the league. Which is why Hamlin catches so much heat, fairly or unfairly. Hes been a pseudo-starter in this Defense. I can see them not bringing in a Simmons because they believe in Bishop, but whether it’s Hancock and/or one of these depth/rotation trades we’ve seen yesterday, I think we need to think strongly about upgrading Safety depth when our depth there is constantly tested.

If our pass rush sucks this year, something drastic needs to be done. In reality, we’ve had a decent pass rush most years in terms of pressure rate, but like everyone else on that side of the ball they fold and/or get hurt in the playoffs. Bosa - Jones - Oliver - Rousseau On paper, that’s a Top 10 DL Add in Hoecht and Epenesa as our DE3 and DE4, and I’d contend from what Hoecht has shown, that’s pretty strong as well. Issue then becomes, do the rookies Jackson, Sanders and Walker give us anything? And does Carter have any second year juice whatsoever. Ogunjobi seems like vet insurance for Week 7 if the answer above is no. When healthy, off-suspension, I think we have 4 plus guys in Bosa, Rousseau, Oliver and Hoecht. Then a lot of unknown with Jones at his age and a bunch of rookies/second year players. Given the investment, this Defense better have the pass rush juice of former years that you spoke of.

Agreed. It’s absolutely fair to point out, last year aside, we’ve had really good regular season defenses. The Playoffs, specifically against Mahomes (and a Burrow game) have been where this defense turns into an absolute joke. Not even just a joke… one of the worst Playoff Defenses of the modern era against Mahomes. So we either need to change the coaching, change the roster and/or change the scheme. We brought in a couple new coaches but McDermott/Babich are still at the forefront. So we shall see there. We brought in a ton of young players, but who knows if that pays dividends yet. If Bosa stays healthy, I do think that’s the single biggest move we made this offseason. So there’s the scheme. It has to change. It just doesn’t work when it matters. Maybe our FO thinks it will if we stay healthy, but we haven’t and keep running it back with the same Back 7 guys who are injury prone, so…

It’s not a gotcha post. I’m legitimately asking.. Theres a reason we can defend Lamar. He’s not the pocket passer other elite QBs are, I don’t care how often the media tries to tell us he is. And he makes mistakes the others don’t in high leverage moments. Thats why we can beat him with this Defense. He has traits that line up with the types of bad/mediocre QBs we tend to dominate, even though I do consider him with his athletic ability, a Top 4 QB with Allen, Mahomes and Burrow.

When is the last time this Defense looked good against a Good QB/Good Offense not led by Lamar Jackson? Honest Question. Maybe for a half against Goff & the Lions? A few regular season games against Mahomes, but then he does whatever he wants against us in the Playoffs. Stafford torched us last year. In the Playoffs, we’ve beaten dregs like Skylar Thompson, rookie Bo Nix, Mac Jones. Josh Allen had to be Player of WC Weekend to stave off Old Man Rivers a few years back.

From all reports out of practices, the Bills are going to be running a more aggressive/attacking Defense. Bend, don’t break works against bad/mediocre QB play, but gets shredded by Burrow and Mahomes. Notice I didn’t say Lamar, because as much as the media wants to force it down our throats, he’s not the surgeon Burrow, Allen and Mahomes are in the pocket. Which is why our defense stands a chance against him in big moments. That, along with his tendency to make a few mistakes in big games. We can say “well, we haven’t been healthy”… ok for 4-5 years this has been an issue in the playoffs and we keep rostering injury prone guys like Rapp, Bishop, Milano, Bernard, Johnson.. add Benford to the list if he doesn’t have a clean year. So either change the identity or keep banging your head against the wall. I’ll withhold judgment until I see this team, with its new investments and supposed new identity. But I’m running out of patience if it’s the same ish, different year.

Yea, I saw that. And have no idea of the Bills made an offer - it certainly hasnt been reported anywhere. But the Packers absolutely have. Its been reported by multiple outlets.

I’m stuck on Rousseau still becoming a thing at DE and I think the idea should be to pair him with an elite guy, not replace him with one. I’m certainly not sending out Rousseau plus a 1st for Hendrickson.

Depth/Rotational Player level trades all over the place today.

No one has reported on the Bills actually offering, so that’s out of left field, but the Packers have been reported by multiple outlets to have offered and been rejected.

For me, it’s just when Joe B says something, it’s usually based in factual rumblings. I don’t know who would want Samuel, but I think it’s notable if he’s posting about it.

If we had to play Mack Hollins as our WR2 this year, people would probably feel the same way about him as they do Gabe. Gabe Davis would be a great WR4 addition to this team and people who are weird about it can’t get over the fact we tried to plug him in as WR2.

He still shows flashes of why we signed him when healthy, but your point is absolutely reality. My guess would be Buffalo sending him on a late round pick swap or something to a team that has cap space and buys into the hope of a healthy Samuel. Might even require us giving up a higher pick in the swap to move him.. but freeing up cap might be worth it to the FO. We’ll see.

Perfect storm of Super Bowl contending team traveling and playing a night game on a long week where exactly 1 starter really plays, and that’s a guy who just came back to practice a few days ago. Going up against a team, with a new coach, trying to change the culture and build confidence in the preseason. Still… that performance was SO BAD. We can’t just brush it away and neither should the staff. You just can’t look that bad out there.. I don’t care who’s on the field.

If we went into the season with Coleman, Palmer, Shakir, Gabe & Moore (or Samuel), we might not have a WR1 but that’s an incredibly deep group of WR2/3 types. Also, Josh in speaking about Keon, mentioned how they plan to use him all over the field.. inside, outside etc. Another pure outside WR could be helpful if they plan on playing Keon all over. Also, moving Samuel (if that’s what Joe B is referring to) lessens the logjam of guys who play more in the slot given Shakir + RB’s and TE’s. As you point out though.. where is the ST’s help in that room, unless Shakir, Coleman and/or Moore replace Codrington as punt returner. I prefer Gabe over Shavers as he’s proven it here. Preseason has a ton of guys like Shavers and I don’t know that he doesn’t make it back to our PS.. every team has a guy like him. But I also don’t know what more he can do… has to be frustrating.

The biggest frustration with Safety is that we’re likely going into the season with Rapp, Bishop, Hamlin, Hancock and Lewis. Cant really make a move this late in the game because it apparently takes a Masters Degree to learn how to play Safety here. Cant really make a move if there’s any belief in Bishop’s potential, because bringing in a starter would essentially be punting on his second season. And can’t really make a move in-season before the deadline, because see point 1 about how difficult it is to learn this defense, allegedly. So we have who we have and better hope it’s enough, because not much we can do about it now. As opposed to most other positions where you can realistically bring in a guy and ramp him up over a few weeks.

Joe Buscaglia casually floating that he won’t be surprised if the Bills trade a receiver that helps them with the cap. This in response to a tweet listing various teams monitoring the WR trade market. Could open up a spot for Gabe Davis and/or Tyrell Shavers.

Easily the episode of the 3 so far

The Safety play this preseason has been comical. Theres not one positive thing I can take away from these two games aside from the potential of Jordan Hancock next year because McDermott won’t play him with his ultra-complicated wizard level Safety requirements.

Agreed. And with Coleman and Palmer outside, the only place Gabe should be getting goal line/red zone snaps is in the slot as an in line blocker who can run routes like we saw against KC in his blow up game.