SoTier

The Diggs trade is in no way similar to the Watson trade except that both landed the Bills a WR.

Agreed. It's not that he traded Hopkins as it is that he traded him away for next to nothing: a high priced, washed-up RB and a second rounder. Hopkins should have garnered at least a first rounder plus another pick/player even from the Cards.

I think Teddy Bridgewater might be a possibility as well.

Absolutely. Any day of the week. Drafting WRs is about as chancy as drafting QBs. So many great college WRs take 2 or 3 seasons to fully learn the NFL game and some never do.

Totally agree. The Bills need to improve their over all depth, and so my only criteria for Day Two picks are prospects who are likely to develop into good starters, and possibly more. Position is irrelevant.

I think that many of the critics were fantasizing about Beane trading up to get CeeDee Lamb or some other supposed "can't miss" prospect. Now they'll have a boring Day 1. Even Bill O'Brien isn't so stupid to trade Hopkins to another AFC team, especially one that not only made the playoffs but gave the Texans all they could handle despite clearly needing a WR1. James Hardy comes to mind. I thought that acquiring Tunsil was a good move and that maybe sending Clowney to the Seahags was a necessary one. There's absolutely no way to spin the Hopkins trade, however, to make it anything but one of the biggest faux pas in Houston's history -- and maybe in league history. It may become legendary. I think some fans are not being realistic about the kind of WR the Bills could get at #22, about how much more they would have to give up to move up in the first round to get one of the top three WRs, and most of all, how important it is to give Allen better weapons this season rather than waiting for next year or the year after for a rookie to develop. With Brady very possibly leaving NE, the opportunity for the Bills to take over the AFCE is now -- 2020 -- and obviously Beane recognizes that and has acted accordingly.

Draft a Day 2 WR with size. Hope that one of the TEs steps up.

The Bills gave up the opportunity to pick a WR who might or might not be a starter in 2020 plus a bunch of "Mr Irrelevants" who were unlikely to make the team -- even with an expanded practice squad. Diggs has a "big" name because he's proven that he's a top NFL WR and a playmaker, something the Bills really, really needed and didn't have much chance of acquiring in the draft. Better to give up a first and some Day Three picks than giving up more to move up in the first round. I'm not scared at all. I'd rather find out that Allen's not who the Bills drafted him to be in 2020 than to be still asking "Is Allen the man?" come 2022, which is where we very well might be if the Bills don't give him better skills players. They've added the veteran playmaking WR. Now they need to add another WR and RB.

I was thinking that the Texans got royally fleeced on the Hopkins trade, and this trade seems to confirm it. I don't know what the thinking was behind the Houston-Arizona deal but it smells of desperation. The analysts on NFLN all seemed to be perplexed by the reasoning behind it as well. It's like the Texans made a complete 180 degree turn: last year they gave a fortune in picks in order to acquire talent and seemed in "win now" mode, and then at some point last season, they decided that they were going to do a rebuild instead, so they started trading away some of their best players. The Hopkins trade seems a continuation of that.

Mea culpa. Thanks.

I think those who want to eliminate SS are extreme right wing ideologues, only a few in politics but more found in academia and among political commentators. I think that a lot of younger people (I'm 70, so lots of people are 'younger') seem to believe that SS is irrelevant to their futures because they're convinced that it won't be there for them when they retire. I've even gotten this kind of passive, defeatist view from people in their early fifties. Because they believe this, they don't make it clear to politicians that raiding the SS trust fund is NOT acceptable to them. The people who do hold current politicians accountable for keeping SS fiscally sound are older voters. Older voters vote regularly, and politicians, knowing that, are wary of upsetting us. Younger voters can't bother to vote regularly, and politicians act accordingly.

It's not that prices would rise -- it's that most people -- especially those that are most likely to have the most need of SS in the future -- would simply fritter away that money away on immediate wants rather than saving it. Moreover most people lack the financial discipline that's necessary to save for their retirement starting in their twenties with their first full time jobs, and too many people who do start saving early lack the financial knowledge and fortitude to invest wisely over the long term -- too many seem either unwilling to invest stocks or too willing to buy into "get rich quick" schemes. A great many younger people prefer to buy a nicer house or a new car or take a pricey vacation rather than contribute to their 401ks, sometimes even when their employers offer matches.

The article you quoted said that they reached an agreement with Smith. It didn't say that he signed a contract. There is a significant difference between agreeing to contract terms and actually signing the contract.

They might agree to a deal but they can't actually sign a deal until after they are drafted.

No college player can sign with any NFL team until after the NFL draft. Bruce Smith was the #1 over all pick in 1985, which the Bills owned because of their crappy record the previous season. Flutie was taken in the 11th round (#285) of the LA Rams. I think that Smith rejected the WFL as an option, so the Bills drafted him, but he couldn't have been signed before the draft. First round draft picks holding out into some time into TC was very common before the rookie salary cap went into effect about 2010 or so.

I'm not a "draftnik" since I don't follow college football, so I'm not going to tout taking a particular player. That said, I'm good with the OP's plan. The Bills need 2 more good WRs and at least 1 better RB (read that as reliable playmakers) than they had last year. However they acquire them, FA or the draft, is fine with me. Allen can't improve without weapons, and the Bills aren't winning many playoff games without a significantly improved offense.

When my father retired in 1982, his pension from his employer of more than 20 years was all of $95 a month My stepmother's pension from the same employer was $105 a month. When my dad died, my stepmother's SS dropped and she lost that $95 a month, so her income dropped quite substantially. Luckily, the house was paid for and they had had savings. If both were alive today (dad would be 103 and stepmom would be 95) their combined pensions would still be $200 a month, no "inflation protection". Many, many older retirees with these kinds of outdated small pensions could not survive without Social Security and Medicare. Younger people who are always whining about social security should make it their business to demand that their Congressmen and Senators protect Social Security and Medicare by seeing that both programs are adequately funded to insure secure income and decent medical care for current retirees and future ones -- which will be themselves at some point in the future, especially as medical/health advances continue to increase the average life span. Contrary to popular myth and political ideology, these are two government programs that work and shouldn't be sacrificed for short-sighted immediate gains.

This is exactly how all pension plans work, whether private industry or government. Retirement benefits, primarily pensions, are based on earnings. The highest paid employees get biggest pensions while the lowest paid get the smallest pensions. Company executives who make tens of millions of salary annually retire with huge pensions and/or retirement benefits while other employees of the same company may end up with pensions worth only a few hundred dollars a month -- and many companies no longer offer pensions at all or even offer to contribute matching funds to 401k plans.

What I have heard over the years is that Wilson traded Lamonica because he had an affair with another player's wife. I don't how true that was but it seems consistent with how Wilson ran the team. I think that Lamonica would have failed in Buffalo. The loss to the Chiefs in the AFC Championship (for the berth in Super Bowl I) was the Bills' last hurrah and ushered in 2 decades of misery for Bills fans which were only broken by Lou Saban's short lived return as coach (1972-the first 5 games of 1976) and the Chuck Knox regime (1978-1982) until Bill Polian took charge of the Bills in 1986. Between 1967 and 1985, the Bills were mostly uncompetitive with the rest of the NFL. Wilson didn't like paying top money for quality players, so the Bills drafted primarily based either position (lots of DBs in the first round) or whether a draftee would accept the Bills' low ball salary offers in the first round. In the 20 years between 1967 and 1986, the Bills had the #1 pick in the entire draft 4 times (OJ Simpson (1968), Walt Putulski (1972), Tom Cousineau (1979), and Bruce Smith (1985)), 3 top 5 picks, and 2 top ten picks. Simpson and Smith both held out a long time before finally signing with the Bills. Cousineau chose to play in the CFL rather than for the Bills. Jim Kelly (the only QB taken in the first round during this period) chose the WFL over the Bills.

This is a simplistic excuse. No QB, not TB12 or Rodgers or Peyton or Montana, can be realistically be expected to have offensive success without adequate protection and good weapons. Teams don't make, much less win, the Super Bowl without having at least decent offense, defense, and special teams. To an extent, the Bills success depends upon Josh Allen's improvement -- and he certainly needs to improve -- but that is not a "get out of jail free" card for Beane and McDermott. The Bills need to put better offensive skill players around Allen. They need to maintain their defensive excellence. They need to upgrade the depth on both sides of the ball. They need to acquire and/or draft/develop playmakers. I agree. I think that except for drafting Allen, Beane (and McDermott) have treated the offense like a red headed stepchild. They devoted considerably more resources to the defensive side of the ball than to the offense. They seem to have far more acumen in evaluating defensive talent than offensive talent. Their supporters have given lots of reasons for that, some valid but many simply excuses. My take is that if this apparent neglect stems from a philosophy that values defense far above offense, then all the continuity in the world isn't going bring the Bills many playoff wins. They cannot put Allen out on the field with 2 decent NFL caliber WRs and 1 decent NFL caliber RB and a bunch of scrubs masquerading as skills players and expect the Bills to compete with the likes of the Chiefs, the Ravens, the Steelers, etc.

I don't think the problems on offense stem from philosophy. I think the offensive problems result from a lack of offensive playmakers which limits the options the coaching staff has to respond to injuries or defensive adjustments. The Bills essentially had one QB with two reliable WRs and one reliable RB. The rest of the skill players simply failed to consistently make plays, so if Brown or Beasley or Singletary were taken out of the game by the defense or by injury, the Bills had no reliable alternatives. What made the Chiefs and Niners so successful in 2019 was that when opponents shut off one thing their offenses did well, they had very real, very dangerous alternatives.

I think that some posters misunderstood the analyst's criteria. He's basing his picks on play/production vs cost. Poyer is best because he's played great at a bargain price. Lotulelei is the worse not because he's played so poorly but because he hasn't played well enough to justify his big $$$. In that context, I think he's probably spot on.

Success in the NFL is measured by wins, especially in the playoffs. The Bills haven't won a playoff game since 1995 or 1996. New England, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh all have as many or more Super Bowl victories as the Bills have playoff appearances in the last twenty years. Last year's team had some unexpected gifts -- the injury to Roethlisberger and playing the Titans before they swapped QBs come to mind. They once again failed to beat the Patriots in two tries. They did win 10 games but then they went one and done in the playoffs because they couldn't score late in games when they needed to. I'm not dissing Beane and/or McDermott because they've done a decent job, but I'm not ready to annoint Beane and/or McDermott as gods for only doing marginally better than some of their predecessors at this early point in their tenure. Measured against what other GMs/HCs around the league have done in their first three years with other organizations, Beane/McDermott are not all that impressive. This is the thing for me. Do they give Allen the support he needs to be truly successful if he's good enough? Are they smart enough to use their cache of cap money wisely to bring in the right players and then draft the right players to make the offense better? The Bills may make the playoffs but they aren't winning many playoff games without a significantly better offense. This is 2020 not 2000.

Economic models never deal with reality because they assume that everybody reacts economically rationally to every situation. Philosophical political models also fail because they don't account for human emotions. Economic and/or political ideologues are great at spewing wonderful sounding ideas -- and visiting misery on millions if they get opportunities to actually put their ideologies into action. The twentieth century saw that repeatedly.

I didn't vote because I need to see more success on the field. I don't care that the FO looks "competent". That means "nothing", especially when looking at a short time span of three years. Tom Donahoe looked "competent" three years in as did Doug Whaley. Beane and McDermott have looked good so far, but unless the team takes the next step -- winning playoff games -- then they aren't significantly better than predecessors.