SCBills

Daquan Jones has been elite in our system, but it's also - in part - due to the system. Same system has guys like Oliver and Bernard playing at incredibly high levels also. It hurts, but Poona Ford has been a very good player in his career, he's younger than Jones, and I'm interested in seeing what he looks like out there. People seem to be taking Jones great play and pairing it to his gameday inactive against the Bengals where we had a ton of defensive issues and his seemed to be the one that broke the camels back. It's Week 6. We have a guy on the roster to replace him. We are working towards a point in the season where may have the best DE rotation in the NFL. If any of these positions (CB, LB, DT) prove to be damaged beyond repair with what we have on the roster, the trade deadline doesn't pass until a few weeks from now. There are teams like Broncos, Vikings, Cardinals, Giants etc., that will soon be looking to move guys off their roster. This all sucks, no way around it, but we have Poona Ford and a RD3 draft pick as depth for Jones and Milano.. I'm willing to see what they look like for a few weeks and then we have the trade deadline to consider. We can also hold onto the hope that, maybe.. just maybe... Jones and/or Milano can get back for the Playoffs. CB is more where I'm worried about. I'd almost hope we get Elam right back out there on Sunday Night, because he was put in a tough position in London and we desperately need him to step up his play over the course of the season. We could probably move a Day 3 pick for a DT or LB should we need to... CB's will be available, but with the investment made, it would be really frustrating to have to do that with a former RD1 pick on the roster.

If he actually gets called up, I'll join the concerned chorus. This screams to me McDermott looking at his extremely young outside corner room and wanting a cheap vet presence that knows the defense in there to be an extension of himself in the room.

If I'm the Bills moving forward, the next iteration of this Defense (starting next year) builds around the following: -Rousseau -AJE -Oliver -Bernard -Benford Hopefully we win it all and send some guys off into the sunset with a Championship, because in order to build around those guys, we may need to make tough decisions on Gabe Davis, Tre White, Micah Hyde, and Jordan Poyer. I'm not sure any of them are on the team in 2024. If the choice is between Gabe and AJE, I'm choosing AJE. He likely won't be as expensive and it's riskier and, most importantly, takes longer, to develop talented DE's. We can find a Gabe Davis replacement late in RD1 or with a potential trade up in RD2. It took Rousseau a year or so to develop. It's taken AJE a couple years. Boogie was a bust. If I'm Buffalo, I'm thinking long and hard about an AJ extension. I'm certainly not trading him when he finally looks to be turning into the guy everyone said slipped to us as a potential steal in the Second Round.

If, big if, we can stay healthy on the DL moving forward, this DL is what can win you Championships. Once we get everyone ramped back up, this is the best DE rotation in the league. We have Ed Oliver on the interior. Depending on how Poona Ford looks, I may be in the mind to just figure it out on the back end and see if there's a DT to play the Jones role available before the trade deadline.

Yea, AJ is only back if he takes a deal on Beane’s terms and no random teams with money to blow give him an outlandish contract for 1.5 years of production.

Bills can get out of the Von deal after next year. If they want to extend AJ, they can. Just backload it. Same thing with Rousseau the following year. The defense is probably going to have quite the shakeup in the off-season with guys like Hyde, Poyer, White, DaQuan, Floyd and AJ all being guys the coaching staff/front office is going to have to make decisions on whether to extend and/or cut bait.

Miami lost Ramsey, and who knows if he’s effective late season in a comeback. Armstead is hanging in by a thread. KC doesn’t get injured. They are invincible aside from Mahomes pretending to sprain an ankle every once in a while.

Ravens lost yesterday because they played a good defense and skill players kept dropping passes. Jags played well and when plays were there to be made every focal player didn’t come through. -Diggs lost a 50/50 -Gabe had a chain moving drop -Knox had chain moving drop -Cook had a chain moving drop -Kincaid didn’t fight for an extra yard -Couldn’t run the ball -OL bullied for the first time since NYJ It was a total failure all around for the offense.

Comment from their board: ”Do we need to trade the achilles of a star player for every win this year?”

McDermott not ruling them out for the season is… interesting. Bills aren’t usually ones to allow for any optimism/aggressive recovery timeframes. Sounds a lot like Jalen Ramsey. Done for the year vibes and then, maybe not.

Bills punted 6 out their first 7 possessions. You don’t think, maybe, that accounts for the TOP & Number of Plays? Bills will force turnovers this year. QB pressure creates turnovers.

Our outside DB room’s eldest member is Dane Jackson, with a bunch of second year guys. Makes sense to bring in a veteran who can provide that presence to the room from the PS.

When did I say those guys were going to be studs? We still have enough on defense. People would say “we can’t lose Ed” if we lost Oliver. “Can’t lose Groot” if we lost Rousseau. “Can’t lose Taron” if we lost Johnson. “Can’t lose Von again” if we lost Von again. Enough already. It sucks. But Tre is the only one that should be a fatal flaw if we can’t get baseline production at corner. You can scheme and/or find a linebacker. You can get by without a stud 1T DT. And these injuries hit before the trade deadline. We held a good offense with a QB that was on point to 11 points until the 4th quarter. That was without Benford, Roussea, Shaq and essentially Von as well. Scheme and Pass Rush can mask A LOT.

So sounds like we’ve lost Tre & Milano for the year and there’s a chance Jones can get back late in the season.

No. If anything I’d look to extend him to a backloaded contract to keep him as a building post Von with Rousseau and Oliver.

Yea, this overreaction is getting annoying and it’s not only aimed at you. Tre hurts for depth, but he was getting back to good.. he wasn’t elite in his form. Milano is elite. He’s a linebacker. Let me repeat myself.. he’s a linebacker. Jones was playing at an elite level. He’s a defensive tackle. Yea, it sucks. But we signed Poona Ford for a reason. He’s a 1T who likely now becomes Daquan lite. We drafted Dorian Williams in RD3 for a reason. The guy drafted before him was slated to start for Dallas at LB before he went down for the year in preseason. Tre is a problem if Elam is a complete bust. We seem to have zero depth behind Jackson and Benford now.

I'd replace Tre White with Taron Johnson. Tre looked to be on his way back to a good corner, but Benford is playing around the same level. I'd like to see what we look like with Ford before I say Daquan Jones is/was Top 4. Matt Milano is definitely a big loss, but at one of the easiest positions on a defense to fill.

Fully torn Pec and he's done for the year. Anything less and we could get him back anywhere between 5-10 games from now.

I just don't see the need, in our defense, for a massive trade like that at CB. I think we need somebody like a Levi Wallace. Just give us a 3rd outside corner that's a solid player / scheme fit. We don't have a ton of off-season needs on Offense, thankfully, but will likely be in the market for a WR2. I'd love for that to be an option with our RD1 pick. On Defense, it's a very different story.. we're staring at 1 DT and 2 reliable EDGE under contract, with Milano & White coming off major injuries and two Safeties that will likely be replaced in the off-season. Beane is going to be cognizant of the future roster building ramifications when looking at the trade environment before the deadline. Surtain makes economic sense for us with this year and next on a rookie deal, so I could talk myself into say... our RD1 pick and Elam if they'd listen, but not any more than that... and even then, we're once again sacrificing potential help for Allen for the Defense, as Surtain would clearly be a foundational piece moving forward.

Poona Ford is a run stuffing/space eating 1T. What we lose with Poona vs Daquan is Jones pass rush ability.

The Defense has been borderline elite for 5 games. Yesterday they held the Jags to 11 points for much of the game, despite coming into the game without a starting CB and starting EDGE, losing their other starting CB the week before and losing their starting DT and LB a few plays in.

Yea, the AFC looks like a jumbled mess with most of the conference at 3-2 or 2-3 and of the 4-1 teams, KC keeps winning close games with help from the refs and Miami looks elite, yet was blown out by the best team they've faced.

Elam seems like a lost cause at this point. The way McDermott talks about him is almost in a dismissive/annoyed tone. It's all very bizarre and that dude out there yesterday was not the same guy on the field against KC and Miami last year. He doesn't seem like a scheme fit, the coaches seem to almost dislike him on a personal level and when given his Year 2 opportunity, he regressed to the point he became unplayable. We can't be going into the rest of the season with Jackson/Benford with a developmental PS squad guy and a headcase backing them up. Either McDermott, Butler and Elam need to all have a sit down this week and get right or we should see if we can flip him for a late round pick and/or flip a late round pick for a baseline solid corner scheme fit... doesn't need to be Patrick Surtain, but we can't have whatever that was in the secondary, for the rest of the year.

We need Dorian Williams to be the answer. I don't expect him to be amazing right away. I do expect a learning curve. But this team NEEDS to take a page from the KC playbook and let young guys develop over the course of the season. We know what Dodson is. He's a backup. We drafted Williams in RD3 for a reason. Given we lose Milano in Week 5, by the end of the season, Williams will no longer be a "rookie". Unless he's Elam levels of unplayable out there, we need to let him learn on the job. I will be pretty disgusted if Dodson is out there next to Bernard. That's just accepting a major downgrade at LB, whereas the development of Dorian Williams over the course of the season could lessen the impact felt.