SCBills

An educated guess before we’ve played any games.. Cook is RB1 and the main option until we get around the opponents 5 yard line. Provided he can be adequate in pass pro, he could become a breakout 3-down player with a healthy YPC and more usage in the passing game as we hammer home more easy button plays for Allen. (Whether Allen can consistently force himself to push those buttons is anyone’s guess) Harris spells Cook and is our goal line back. Murray is Harris insurance.

They still have to play under the same cap rules as everyone else.. For every Cowboys/Browns, there’s a Chiefs/Niners playing hardball with their best defensive player.

This is a great point and without Von, I agree completely. The Jets DL, on paper, is better than our DL. However, our OL should be better than theirs. I think we’re going to lean on the completeness of our DL in hoping our DT’s can push back their interior, while we play games with the EDGE rushers as Floyd, Rousseau and Epenesa are all extremely long and athletic and can drop if we send a CB or LB in their place. I’m optimistic that our IOL can hold up against Q and company, but I really need to see Dawkins and Brown show out against their speed off the edge. Expect to see Knox paired up on the end of the line quite a bit to help out in pass pro before releasing into routes.

Hard to say, because I’m not sure what our defense is under McDermott.. I’m sure he had to be somewhat in lockstep with Frazier for the past few years, but McD’s defense as a coordinator were not at all like Frazier’s. Im not sure if we’ll blitz a ton - wouldn’t rule it out, but I think the pass rush will be more creative.. overloads, dropping DE’s and sending LB’s/DB’s etc.. At least, I hope that’s the case. One thing is for sure, this matchup is incredibly intriguing because our defense has been elite against mediocre/bad QB’s and Lamar Jackson, but has been exposed in big moments by the top QB’s. I thought they were good against Mahomes last year, but they also had Von for that game… and he clearly made a difference. Im sure McDermott is going to want to make a statement in his first game as HC/DC.

Same with our division. Bills/Bengals Dolphins/Ravens Jets/Browns Patriots/Steelers -Bills/Bengals are the top teams on paper. -Can Lamar & Tua stay healthy? -How does it look for Rodgers & Watson?.. both on talented rosters. -Can Jones & Pickett make a jump? I have more faith in Rodgers than I do Watson, but conversely, I have more faith in Pickett than Jones.. and that Steelers roster is much better than the Patriots.

At Tackle, correct. Best bet there is probably what we’re doing.. drafting toolsy guys to try and develop - or go the Bengals/Chiefs route and drop a bag on a guy in FA. On the interior, it’s incredibly frustrating due to the fact so many fans wanted Creed Humphrey and Trey Smith. That’s not me second guessing.. the overwhelming portion of the fanbase were begging Beane to draft them, only for KC to do so and form the best IOL in the NFL with Thuney. Hopefully we learned our lesson, because I do think we may have a very good IOL going into the season.

I like that you put the AFCN over the AFCE. For all the talk of our division, if Pickett makes any kind of jump and Watson, at all, resembles the guy he used to be.. that division is incredible.

“Shout” is good. Typically 45-50 minutes. Anything from Cover 1 is very good, typically 60-90 minutes. Buffalo Beat w/ Joe Buscaglia, “It’s Always Gameday” and Bills Chat Podcast all decent but less frequent content. We seem to have an absurd amount of content creators for our team.. not sure if this is the same across the NFL?

I may be in the minority, but have zero care to think about “what if” we drafted Mahomes.. McDermott isn’t Reid. Beane hasn’t built the OL Mahomes has had for most of his career. We haven’t had a Kelce. Doesn’t mean McDermott/Beane are bad.. I’m not trying to bring negativity to an anti-negativity thread, but they aren’t the gold standard.. which so far, has been Reid/Veach. And they’ve done things for Mahomes that we have not for Allen. Therefore, I have zero reason to think the Mahomes we see in KC is the one we’d see here. QB development/success has quite a bit to do with the situation they land in. To give our staff credit, Allen being arguably the most physically talented QB to enter this league, may never have been unlocked if he didn’t end up with McDermott/Daboll for his first few years.

I don’t expect Von back until Week 6, but the fact remains .. the defense we finished the year with doesn’t hold a candle to our opening day roster. Loss: Edmunds Added: Floyd Ford Rapp Now Healthy: Phillips White Poyer Hyde Jones I point this out because, justifiably, a lot of angst is due to how the defense finished the year, and then ended with another feckless performance against an elite offense. Admittedly, the age of our Safeties and the ability of the pass rush to be felt without Von are question marks - along with the obvious hole we’re trying to fill at MLB … … but this defense, on paper, is far more talented than the one that limped to the finish line last year.

I’m optimistic, but back to wait and see mode. It really comes down to the lines. The over-investment (without returns) on the DL and the lack of investment (with ramifications) on the OL. The Jets game will really test both of my concerns. -Can our OL protect Allen against an elite DL? -Can our DL, without Von, take advantage of a weak OL against a QB like Rodgers? On paper, however.. whether by development, return from injury and/or additions, we should be improved at OL, DL, CB, S, RB, WR & TE. Then factor in a healthy Josh Allen and Year Two of Dorsey & Kromer. Lots to be excited about.

Agrees with Portnoy that both Biden and Trump are too old to be President .. going to be interesting to see if he goes on a Truth Social rampage against him. I “think” he’s smart enough to leave that alone. He doesn’t want smoke with Tucker.

Kaiir Elam quickly solves some of the speed problem, but it remains to be seen whether he'll be a part of the equation in any meaningful way this season.

Clearly they are just playing hardball with the unnamed AFC team.

Too accurate ha…

Marino is really good. A little too defense-obsessed for my liking, but overall he does a great job. Good breakdown of Ifedi, and it’s interesting that we seem to be going with a LT backup and RT backup, as opposed to the “swing tackle”… I don’t hate it.

We can probably get by with some of these misses in recent drafts due to the fact we’ve been able to cover them up with Free Agents. CIN & KC have crushed recent drafts and now they have the good problem of having to decide who to pay. The biggest issue moving forward is making sure we hit on some key guys along with maintaining strong depth via our drafts. Beane has been very good at the depth piece … not so much with the impact piece, which is why we’ve had to go out and pay for a Von Miller and Leonard Floyd this year. Which is why we’re desperately praying that Spencer Brown makes a jump this year. He’s invested heavy in the DL via the draft, without much to show for it, while at the detriment of the OL. Let’s hope he’s steadied the ship with these FA signings and let’s also hope that Rousseau, Cook, Kincaid, Torrence, along with at least one of Benford/Elam and Bernard/Williams all show themselves to be the pillars of the next few years as cheap contracts we can build our next window upon. No more mulligans on high impact picks. Beane won’t hit on them all, but he can’t miss on most of them either… Not when Josh Allen is making 40M+ against the cap.

At this point, just use 7th Round picks as minor trade pieces or to draft a punter.

They have a ton of cap space, but also a ton of high value players to pay. There's a reason they're playing hardball with Chris Jones..

Of course, even the best drafting teams have misses... and I'm not very high on the Chiefs last two drafts tbh. That said, they hit on two elite OL. Bengals hit on an elite WR. If one of Rousseau, Epenesa or Boogie became an elite pass rusher.. we would all forgive Beane for missing (or hitting a single/double) on the other two. That hasn't happened... If it did, our DL wouldn't have been a weakness when Von went down. FYI: I do believe Rousseau can become elite, but he was always a project.

Which is why GM's and HC's lose their jobs... We're not competing with every other team. We're competing with the best of the best. During this time, the Chiefs and Bengals crushed their drafts, especially when it comes to impact players. We built some good depth and hit on some really good players, but Beane whiffed on the impact picks (at least thus far.. maybe Rousseau becomes that). To provide some optimism.. Cook, KIncaid and Torrence may change the narrative, whereas the Chiefs recent two drafts feel like prior Bills drafts.

Chiefs DL didn't handle them. Chris Jones handled them. He was a gamewrecker, and without him, the Chiefs DL would've looked a lot like ours. ....especially if they inexplicably played off coverage all game.

The Jets could probably get it done.. They could backload his contract to start hitting after Rodgers steps away, and they could send some picks and one of their pass rushers who Bosa would replace. I mean, if the 49ers asked for Will McDonald or Jermaine Johnson and some picks, would they really say no?

This. If one of AJE or Boogie hit, we're singing a different tune. Instead one was barely rosterable and the other is a DE4 that we hope gives us 3rd down pass rush ability in a contract year so he can pop off and sign a big contract elsewhere. Rousseau has been good, but we're still waiting for him to make that impact player jump. Meanwhile the Chiefs built an elite OL with two hits and the Bengals had hit on a WR1 to be their WR2. I will say, I'm not exactly impressed with the Chiefs recent high draft picks.. McDuffie, Karlaftis, Moore, Uzomah and Rice... We'll see. Feels a lot like the Bills high draft picks of recent (up until this year).

Certainly interesting.. May be some perception > reality, however the main criticism on Beane has been his inability to draft impact players. Rousseau, Cook, Kincaid and Torrence hopefully change that narrative. The reason Beane catches heat is because of who we're competing with.. Chiefs/Bengals.. and those two teams have hit on some serious game changers in guys like Humphrey, Smith, Bolton, Higgins etc.. Beane does do a great job at building a deep roster through scouting Day 3/UDFA's, but the draft separation between us and them has been those high impact draft picks.