SoTier

One of the reasons that I started this third iteration of "Backyard Birding" is because I discovered a new birding "guide" last year: the Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab for your phone. It enables you to identify birds by their songs and calls, which can really expand the birds you can identify even if you are walking in a woodsy area where it's almost impossible to see birds. For example, I was walking in a part of the Jamestown Community College's campus called "The Hundred Acre Lot" and heard an unusual bird call (not a "song"). This area is heavily forested, and rather swampy in the area where i was walking. Using Merlin, I was able to identify the bird as a Wood Duck, a cavity nesting duck that is seldom seen unless you come across a nest sight. The Merlin app enables you to save the bird calls, so you can make a list of the birds you've encountered along with the date and time and the call. Moreover, you can find out more information about the birds you've seen or identified by call within the app. The Merlin app is free to download, although Cornell Lab will ask you join and/or donate.

This is my original post in my original topic on Backyard Birding started in 2020. It's aged well. A great hobby to start during this pandemic is "backyard birding" which is learning to identify the birds in and around your house and/or neighborhood. It's a great way to get yourself, your kids, your parents and/or grandparents interested in nature and science. It's inexpensive. It's not complicated. You don't even need a yard ... a neighborhood park or a cemetery or even a grassy median (like on Bidwell Parkway in Buffalo) will work. A window overlooking your neighbor's yard might even work. To get started, you need a guide to birds. I like the Audubon Society's Field Guide to North American Birds which I have been using since the 1980s. It's pocket size, comes with a plastic like cover, and has photos, maps, and info about each bird in it. Field Guide to Birds. It's less than $16. If you have a yard, you can buy a bird bath and set it up in a sunny spot that you can see from one or more windows or from a deck or porch. Even a cheap plastic one will work fine. In addition to seeing more birds, you may actually save some by providing water in dry spells. Remember to clean your bird bath regularly as when the birds use it, it will get messy. You can bring more birds into your yard -- and see more birds -- using bird feeders of various types -- and cost. Especially in the spring, migrating birds are towards the end of their travels and need ready sources of food. I feed primarily black oil sunflower seed plus suet cakes but I also feed a fruit/nut mix and peanuts. Don't buy those bird feed mixes sold in grocery stores as they have cheap filler seeds that birds won't eat and scatter all over the ground. Tractor Supply has a nice selection of feeders and bird seed. If you want some guidance, try the Wild Birds Unlimited on McKinley near the mall in Blasdell. There's also a WBU in Amherst ... on Transit I think. I have my tubular sunflower feeders out year around but that's not possible if you live in bear country. Raccoons can also be problems, especially in the summers when young ones go exploring. Many people have luck attracting hummingbirds with feeders or by hanging gaudy fuchsia pots on their porches. I haven't, probably because as a gardener, my hummers go for the hostas, bee balm, and trumpet vines planted in the yard. I also plant sunflowers -- generally by cleaning up the seeds/hulls from around the feeder poles and depositing that in a sunny spot along my side fence -- which attracts clouds of goldfinches when the sunflowers ripen. The great thing about backyard birding is that it's something you can do for the entire rest of your life, even when you are very old and not very mobile. My late step-mother, who suffered from emphysema, loved sitting on her back porch watching the hummers coming to her fuchsia plants or sitting at her kitchen table watching the chickadees and cardinals coming to her seed feeders.

There's lots of time to get a contract done, including after the 2025 season until the opening of FA. Drafting a RB would have been a shot over Cook's bow, a signal that the Bills aren't going to budge on the money. Beane wisely decided to keep communications/negotiations open going forward.

Consider that two teams with great/good QBs and great WRs but crappy OLs missed the playoffs in the AFC in 2024. They also didn't have particularly good defenses, either. Miami and Cincinatti put all their money into their QBs and WRs which has left the cupboard bare of talent for the rest of the team. The only team that seems to have beaten the cap restrictions enough to have a good QB, a great OL and great WRs alongside a good defense is the Eagles, but some day all those void years are going to have to be counted.

Beane hardly neglected Josh. They gave him a blocking TE and an OT prospect. The Bills are never going to be a pass first offense under Beane/McDermott/Brady. They want to be a diversified offense that can score in multiple ways from anywhere on the field. They don't want Allen to have to always have to be Super Man. They did pretty well in implementing that last season. Improving the defense will help Allen significantly more than adding a Day 3 WR.

IMO, the Bills traded up to take Losman pretty much for the same reason they signed Terrell Owen in 2009 and took Manuel in 2013: they wanted to excite the fan base in order to sell season tickets. What excites a fan base of a losing team better than providing a "savior" in terms of a first round QB or signing a future HOF WR? They could have had Losman in the 2nd or 3rd or better yet, they could have taken Matt Schaub in the 2nd who had a decent NFL career ... or they might have simply used the picks they gave up for Losman to draft OLers to protect their current QB at the time, Drew Bledsoe, and as you said, taken Rodgers in 2005. How about size and/or the ability to catch the ball? There are lots of speedy WRs who fall to Day 3 because they're smaller or they can't catch the ball consistently.

You do realize that most Day 3 picks at whatever position they play are lacking in at least one of these: talent, experience or size. Most of them will never be more than special teamers. Those who do succeed usually take two or more seasons to become good pros, so a team has a "good pro" for only one or two years if that team doesn't re-sign the Day 3 picks who turn into their good pros. That's the philosophy that the Drought Era regimes embraced and which is what resulted in the Bills missing the playoffs for 17 straight seasons.

On the first Ravens play from scrimmage, Derek Henry ran 87 yards for a TD. He finished with 199 yards on 24 rushing attempts (8.3 per carry) plus 3 receptions for 10 yards including a 1 TD. Lamar Jackson ran for 1 TD. Patrick Ricard recovered a Derek Henry fumble in the EZ for another TD. It wasn't the Bills day. Both the offense and the defense sucked. Realistically, how many "star WR talents" come out of rounds 4-7 in the 2020s? There was a time when really talented WRs (and most other positions) could be found at the end of the draft, but those days are long gone. I think you should reread your post and consider what you are asking of Beane and company to do. You are asking them to not only draft a player simply to placate a portion of the fan base, but to spend additional draft capital to do it. Shades of Russ Brandon drafting EJ Manuel in 2013 to put butts in the seats!!! 👎 'Cuz the Chargers are gonna Charger? I don't have to imagine being a teacher because I was one many years ago. Teachers do NOT select the students in the classrooms; that's the school administration's job. Teachers and position coaches are analogous. School administers and team executives are analogous. Beane/McDermott have certainly NOT treated Josh Allen and the offense as a proverbial "red-headed stepchild". I'm not going to delineate the players the Bills have drafted, signed as FAs or traded for to provide Allen with both targets and protection. Your problem, sir, is that you think that only QBs and WRs matter to a good offense. You apparently don't even count OLers or TEs or RBs as part of the offense. Your way of looking at the draft is wrong for more than just your narrow vision of offense, however. See my response above to Happy Days.

Who has a better QB than the Bills? Maybe KC but their WR group is no great shakes either -- and their OL is pretty stinky compared to the Bills. The Bills WRs could be better but the combo of Allen and the OL plus their stable of RBs makes for a good offense. Defense, OTOH, has been the Bills problem in the playoffs every year. This was a good draft for defensive players, and the Bills loaded up on some. Chill out.

I looked him up. It was Costa. He started out as a TE, drafted well after the first round, and eventually moved to tackle in the pros. I do stand corrected in that while he did block for OJ Simpson, he retired after the 1972, so he wasn't part of the OL that blocked for Simpson's 2003 yards, which was 1973. Seymour was always listed as a TE in the pros although he was definitely a "blocking TE": he caught 62 balls for 818 yards and 3 TDs in 5 seasons.

I generally agree with you that Lamar isn't as good as Josh or Mahomes, but my argument still stands that it takes more than just talent to win a Super Bowl. There are numerous variables, but in the end, it comes down to the players on the field performing in the clutch. In last year's AFCCG, the Ravens could have tied the game and potentially won it if only one of Baltimore's Pro Bowlers, Mark Andrews, caught a simple pass at the goal line. I saw that pass and just assumed he'd catch it ... I was already cursing ... and he just dropped it. He was devastated by the play, and couldn't talk to reports after the game. It happens. OTOH, in the 2008 Super Bowl, David Tyree, a career backup WR whose claim to fame was special teams ace and who had caught all of 4 passes for 35 yards that 2007 season, caught Eli Manning's long pass on his helmet to help the Giants spoil the Patriots' perfect season. Tyree will always be remembered for "The Helmet Catch". It happens.

Nobody has any idea how any draft pick is going to turn out immediately after the draft, especially posters on fan forums.

Different regime. Different motivation. Beane/McDermott would NEVER have traded away Peters for a late first rounder (it was Philly's second first rounder) because they never would have put themselves in the situation that Russ Brandon got himself into because they're intent on winning football games rather than maximizing profits. The Bills were never going to draft Xavier Worthy, so get over it. They were looking for a big boundary WR, and Worthy at 5'11" and 165 lbs wasn't that.

For all their Pro Bowlers, how many times have the Ravens made the Super Bowl since they acquired Lamar Jackson? The same number of times as the Bills. They've made the AFCCC game only once -- and lost to the Chiefs. Just a few months ago, the talented Ravens lost to what you consider the "talentless" Bills in the Divisional round. There's more to building a team that wins the Super Bowl than simply accumulating talent. Both the Bills and Ravens are trying to get to the Super Bowl, and that road invariably goes through KC. If either team can beat KC, they will have a good shot at beating whomever they meet in the Super Bowl.

The Bills offense needed to be great last year because the defense wasn't. The Bills felt that the DL and the defensive backfield needed serious attention. I'm not going to argue with that. Defense wins championships. Moreover, the Bills did take an OL prospect and a blocking TE prospect to protect Allen. A QB needs targets, but he needs protection more. I'm among those who believe that KC would have 5 SB rings if they had protected Mahomes better against the Bucs and Eagles. It's also possible that both Kincaid and Coleman, who both did not play particularly well after they came back from injury, improve considerably this coming season since they're both young players, and that would more than make up for the loss of Cooper and Hollins.

Several posters in other threads have noted that the Bills seemed to be looking for traits like athleticism, speed, tackling ability etc. That's my take, too, and I think that that's a good strategy on Day 3, especially after the 4th round. Most of these kids aren't going to make any NFL roster even if they play special teams, but having some traits that set them apart increases their chances.

Great OLs are rarely filled with multiple Pro Bowlers and All Pros because teams can't afford to pay them all. They usually have 1 or 2 Pro Bowl caliber players and 3-4 very good ones. They also have unit cohesion that makes the OL as a unit significantly better than its parts. That describes the Bills OL to a 'T'.

With an improved defense, maybe the offense doesn't have to score 30+ points to beat KC in the playoffs.

One of the best OTs who ever played for the Bills was an UDFA TE named Jason Peters. Back in the days of the OJ Simpson's Electric Company, a converted TE named Paul Costa anchored one side of the OL that helped OJ run for 2003 yards ... in 14 games. Maybe Hawes is the next Bills TE to move to OT.

Bull manure. They have built a perennial serious contender for the Super Bowl. There is no comparison between the Bills drafts under Beane/McDeromott and the previous regimes' drafts. There is no comparison between the way the current Bills regimes builds its rosters and what passed for roster building in the Drought Era. It wasn't an accident that one of Beane's first actions as GM in 2017 was to replace most of the Bills talent scouting personnel, including some scouts but definitely almost all of the FO personnel. Now, I don't know if you weren't a Bills fans through the Drought Era or if Beane/McDeromott's success has skewed your perspective, but I was a season ticket holder back during the Drought. I sat through losing season after losing season when the best part of attending games was the pre-game tailgating. I saw those clowns mostly draft crappy players. I saw them either trade away the best players they accidentally drafted or let those good players walk away in free agency. IOW, there were few attempts by previous Bills regimes to build a winning team after John Butler and AJ Smith left for San Diego, and none after Russ Brandon became the de facto GM in 2006. McCargo, Troupe, and the infamous Aaron Maybin were all on Brandon's watch. Maximizing profits was infinitely more important than winning football games during the last years of Ralph Wilson's ownership. And FTR, I was NOT a big McDermott or Beane fan when either was hired. I was very skeptical of many of their moves early on, and I admit that I thought that trading away so much assets to draft Josh Allen was a mistake. I thought they should have stayed at 12 and taken Lamar Jackson. I'm glad I was wrong, even though Lamar is a great QB in his own right. Lamar, however, has faced the same hump that Allen and the Bills have faced: the gauntlet of getting through the AFC playoffs only to face the Chiefs in order to get to the Super Bowl.

FYI -- McCargo was drafted in 2006 and Torell Troup was drafted in 2010, long before McDermott or Beane or Pegula came on the scene.

Most draft experts expected a run on DBs, especially CBs, in the first run because there were fewer really good DB prospects than really good DT prospects. Instead, there was a run on DTs that eliminated all of the top-rated DTs well before the Bills' turn. The expected run on DBs never materialized. Hairston was the third CB off the board behind Hunter and Barron (who went later than expected). Most mocks didn't have the Bills taking Hairston because they likely expected him to be long gone. There are still some decent DT prospects left. Every team factors need into their evaluations to get their lists of "best players available", especially at the top of the draft. They also consider how a player fits into their offense or defense. If you think that the Eagles traded up to take Jihad Campbell just because some draftniks think he was their "highest rated player" without regard to how he fit into their plans going forward, you are not being realistic.

Because the white Hairstons owned so many slaves, there are a lot of blacks named Hairston because many freedmen took their former owners' surnames even though most were not blood relatives to their white masters. Many black Hairstons today are not necessarily even related to some other blacks bearing the Hairston name. While the Hairstons are one of the most well known slave holding families, they aren't unique. For more information on the Hairstons, black and white, read Henry Wiencek's definitive family history, The Hairstons, An American Family in Black and White. It's available on Amazon. It's a good read.

Chuck Berry's "Maybelline" ... Maybelline

Is it that Cook "cannot block" or that he cannot block as well as Ty Johnson or that he can't catch all that well? It's entirely possible that one part of Johnson's game -- his ability to block and make clutch short yard catches -- is better than Cook's. OTOH, there's little doubt that Johnson's over all game isn't as good as Cook's. It's also likely that Cook's talent would be much harder to replace than Johnson's. I think that Cook is worth more to the Bills than a specialist like Johnson. I'm good with paying him $12-13 million. On the Bills Drought Era RB carousel, Travis Henry doesn't quite fit the profile. McGahee, Lynch, and even Spiller were good/great players who were sent packing simply because the Bills didn't want to pay them. Henry had off field issues that surfaced after the Bills traded him away. Not sure how much of his drug use that the Bills were aware of. He was suspended more than once while with Tennessee and Denver, and I believe he was imprisoned for drug trafficking.