Mikey152

I am pretty sure that is exactly what will happen, unless somebody like Claypool or Coleman take the reigns and become dominant. See my post earlier in the thread...Shakir had elite YPT last year, so he can get close to 1k with similar production and 80-90 targets. Even if he regresses a little, I think guys like Samuel, Cook, Coleman and MVS can also provide YPT north of 8. I think, top to bottom, that the WR core is going to have a higher catch % AND better YAC than at least the last two seasons WR. Let's face it, it wouldn't be hard.

Yes and no. I would say that it DOES need to focus more on spreading the ball around initially, as nobody on the current roster is proven as a 150+ target guy. That said, I think this is easily the most physically talented WR core Josh has ever had, and it isn't really close. Top to bottom, Catch %, size, speed is all better than it has ever been.

I live in Columbus and saw a lot of those games live...what I am telling you is he was not a WR at OSU, but a RB that took snaps in the slot. He basically played the Percy Harvin role. He's also 34. His targets and receptions were both down last season. Even if you assume no additional regression from him this season, I think it is safe to assume Kincaid's targets will increase (from 90) closer to TKs 130 or more. If that happens, I see no reason DK can't equal TK's 2023 production. They were already pretty similar from a rate perspective and Kincaid was a rookie.

No, not really. He played 3 seasons, and the first two were pretty much strictly at RB. He played a tiny bit of slot as a junior, but mostly flexed. Definitely not a WR.

I feel like this is disingenuous. Everyone likes to move the goalposts...lets take the Chiefs the last two years, for example. The will say "yeah, their WR suck, but Kelce..." but barely even mention Kincaid and Knox as factors. I would bet that as soon as this year Kincaid will surpass Kelce in production. As for Rice...he was a second round rookie and pretty much a non-factor to start the year. You could easily argue he isn't even as good a prospect as Coleman. So you are using confirmation bias based on results, not how they built their team.

Clearly you don't know much about Curtis Samuel... He was a RB in college, not a WR. He was "converted" in the NFL. So judging how he played as a WR in his rookie season on a trash team is a really crappy way to judge him. He was drafted high because he is extremely fast and magic with the ball in his hands. If he was a polished WR, he would have been a first rounder. All that said, his physical measurables are identical to Diggs. He was one of the best in the NFL separating against man last year. He is a quality player who arguably has never met his potential. This year, we will see if that is a CS thing, or a situation thing. Most great WR (and great players for that matter) are generally a byproduct of opportunity.

Here's a post I had from another thread...I feel like this is pretty realistic. Feel free to tell me why you don't think this works.. Ok, let's try something here... Lets assume the Bills throw the ball ~550 times this year, and the target breakdown is something like: Cook - 50 Shakir - 80 Samuel - 80 Coleman - 70 Knox - 50 Kincaid - 120 MVS - 50 Everyone else - 50 And everyone is around the same ypt as last season Cook - 8.2 (410) Shakir - 13.6 (led NFL among qualifiers) (1088) Samuel - 6.7 (536) Coleman - 9.2 (this was Gabe's) (644) Knox - 5.2 (260) Kincaid - 7.4 (888) MVS - 7.5 (375) Everyone else - 7 (350) That puts Josh at 4,551 yards passing (8.2 ypa), which would be a career high on what is also his lowest attempts since 2019. Even if you see regression from Shakir and Coleman, that would likely be propped up by some positive regression from MVS (8.5 in 2022) Knox (8.0 in 2022) and Samuel (7.1 in 2022 and 8.8 in 2020 under Joe Brady) I think a lot of you are underrating just how inefficient Diggs was last season with his targets. He was in line with a TE, not a #1 WR.

Samuel and Shakir will be fine playing outside, especially off the ball. Samuel is almost the exact same size as Diggs, and is one of the best in the NFL against man coverage. I don't expect him to be all-pro like Diggs was, but skills and body wise he isn't as far off as people think. He had over 1k yards from scrimmage his one year with Brady.

What about it? It's a second round pick. In that same draft, the Bills traded their only pick before Higgins for Steph Diggs. I'd say they got a better return, especially when you consider Higgins probably isn't gonna sign a second contract in Cincy. Do I wish, in hindsight, that they rolled the dice on JJ or Aiyuk? Sure. But they needed a guy that season and banking on a rookie was too risky....again, because they were good.

The Bengals hit at 1 and 5. The Bills hit at 7 and "missed" at 9. I think the rest is decidedly in the Bills favor despite lesser picks.

Because the Bengals have had triple the chances

I liked him, too. But the Bills put a lot of time/work in with Franklin and passed quite a few times...clearly they had a reason to not draft him. Guess we will see if they were right.

I think you are making a strawman argument. I never said that the Bills never had high picks under Beane. I said that they have made the playoffs every season but one. Even the high picks were work to acquire. If you compare us to the Bengals, it is pretty clear that over the last 7 years they have had considerably better picks than the Bills through the entire draft in all but two seasons. The fact that they pulled two star receivers to the Bills one (Diggs) isn't much of an accomplishment...If Kincaid pans out like we hope, it might not even be as bad. Take Tee Higgins for example. He is a good player. Maybe even great. But he is probably the 4th best receiver from that class, at best,. and thats not counting Diggs. Arguably lower. Statistically he's not that much better than Gabe. Also, as luck would have it...the years we had high picks were not great years for receivers. 2020 was like the best WR draft in history and 2021 was super top heavy...I just am not gonna give the Bengals FO a ton of credit for those two drafts, and that is really all you are hanging your hat on with them. Nobody said Beane is perfect. He could have done better on a few first rounders, but he hasn't really had any slam dunk opportunities, either. I know Elam sucks, but who are you taking instead? I know GR isn't an all-pro, but who would you rather have? I know we could have JJ, but at the time Diggs made sense. I might give Beane too much credit, but probably only because you don't give him enough.

Are you new to sports? The model is and has always been: Be really bad for a few seasons, stockpile high picks, draft elite players, hope you win a championship. Very few teams have sustainable runs for several years without a QB who carries them, and they all inevitably have issues with supporting cast talent level. It's just how it is. 2020-2024 was 5 years. You gave me 1 or 2 players from each team. A safety, a CB and a DE. And the Chiefs had to trade Tyreek to get one of them. Kyle Hamilton was #14 overall, aka the Ravens down year when Lamar got hurt. Karlaftis had 10.5 sacks his second year...GR had 8 in 13 games his second year. Are they really that different or are you just trying to prove a point? Side note: The best player (so far) in the second round from that 2022 draft? James Cook (Ill take second after Hall, but either way). Best from the third? Bernard. Probably also top 5 in the 5th round (Shakir) and best from the 6th (Benford).

That's the whole point. Once you get out of the top 15, it's super inconsistent. The slam dunks at high value positions are gone. The Bills tried to move up to get the guys they wanted and were hit or miss, but they were always dealing from a weak position relative to the bad teams. How many stars have the chiefs or Ravens drafted in the first round since 2020? And Edmunds made the pro bowl 2x and signed a huge FA deal. He isn't the best player in the NFL, but most people would take that at 16. Meanwhile, Tee Higgins had 600 yards receiving last year in a contract year and he's better than everyone on the Bills.

The point is, Julio Jones at #6 is a slam dunk. Julio Jones for two firsts, a second and a 4th...that's a big difference. Did the Bills miss on some players? Sure. All teams do. The fact that they even picked that high despite being in the playoffs and not mortgage the future, managing to field a strong team is the sign of a good front office. The Bengals hit on a few guys after years where they won 2 and 4 games. All their other drafts are full of ok at best guys in the first two rounds. They are a terrible example to compare the Bills FO to.

Again, you're cherry picking. The Bills actual First round picks (earned) since 2018 are: 21, 9, 22, 30, 25, 27 and 28 The Bengals earned first round picks since 2018 are: 12, 11, 1, 5, 31, 28, 18 The two years the Bengals made the playoffs, they drafted Daxton Hill and Miles Murphy. Did the bills make trades for more draft capital? Yes. Did they trade for All Pro WR? Yes. But those trades cost assets. They weren't free. And you just skip Josh like it was a slam dunk. Their first pick that year was 21. They used most of their ammo to get him. They didn't get their QB by winning two games. I get it. 2019 was a rough year for the first two rounds and Elam hasn't panned out so far.

Is he, though?

I think you are missing the point. Over the same period of time (2018-2023) the Bengals have had SIGNIFICANTLY more draft capital than the Bills, due to being pretty bad at least two of those years and only making the playoffs TWICE. In 2018, the Bengals had pick 12. They traded it to the Bills for 21 and Cordy Glenn. The Bills then had to trade two second round picks to get to 7 to take Josh. What I am saying is, you aren't comparing apples to apples. You're looking across drafts and at significantly different draft capital and comparing the top two or three picks for each organization. Of course the Bengals high end guys are better...they were picked way higher routinely.

Those were the Bills picks they "earned" based on record. They made the playoffs in 2017 and had to trade two number twos and Cordy Glenn among other things to get from 21 and 22 to 7 and 16. So trading a ton of assets to go from 21 to 7 isn't the same as sucking into #1. If you don't count 2017 (Mcdermott didn't coach the team in 2016 and Beane wasn't the GM), the Bills have only had one pick outside the 20s the whole time McDermott has been the coach and Beane was the GM. Sure, they traded down to acquire picks and used those to trade up...but that isn't the same as being bad and getting top picks in every round. In that same time, the Bengals picked TWICE IN A ROW in the top 5 based solely on record, including #1 overall.

We will have to agree to disagree on comparable...1, 5, and 33 are light years away from 9, 21, 22 and 40. Im not sure you could trade our 4 picks for just #1...nevermind #5 and #33. The Bengals were gifted Joe Burrow. The Bills turned pick #21 into #7 draft day style in order to take Josh Allen. Huge difference, and the fact that you don't see it is telling.

They weren't the same drafts... Look at those drafts and tell me how you would have picked them different Also "top 38" is a bit disingenuous. Chase and Burrow were top 5. Our highest pick was Ed Oliver at 9, and that 2019 draft we had it in was a defensive draft...the best players in the first round are all defense (and a RB)

Chase wasn't in the 2018 or 2019 draft. The first WR drafted in the 2019 draft was Marquise Brown in the 20s. In hindsight, maybe we could have taken Simmons or Sweat or Burns and be marginally better off, but DL was the right pick at that point. The real miss that year was Cody Ford, but guys like AJ and DK weren't slam dunks at the time. In fact, lots of people on this board hated DK. As for 2018...in hindsight maybe staying at 22 and getting DJ Moore or Calvin Ridley would have been better. But who knows if we trade for Diggs? Or sign John Brown. Wrong year. We took Ford in 2019. Higgins was 2020. We missed on Brown and Metcalf, though. I do want to go on record that I think assigning "blame" to coaches and GMs and players for failing to do more than winning the division and winning at least one playoff game every year since 2020 is really kind of silly. I hope at the very least you all realize we are making mountains out of molehills.

In 2019, Zac Taylor and the Bengals went 2-14. In 2020 draft, they picked Joe Burrow #1 overall, and then picked Tee Higgins with the first pick in the second round. The Bills traded their pick, #22, for Steph Diggs. Hindsight 20/20 maybe we should have picked a WR there instead, but I wouldn't call that a bad move in context. The Bengals went 4-11-1 in 2020 and almost got Joe Burrow killed. Zac Taylor won 6 games in 2 years. With the #5 pick, they draft Jamar Chase. The Bills picked 30th that year. The Bengals built that team because they won 6 games in two years. It wasn't amazing GM or coaching decisions. Higgins went 33 in 2020. For the Bills to get him they wouldn't have had Diggs. Diggs>Higgins from 2020-2023. He'd also be tied with Coleman for the 4th highest drafted player on the team since 2020.

Not for nothing, but one of the downsides of being the second best team in the NFL for 5 years is we pick pretty low in the draft every year. IMO, that's the big reason we have a solid roster, but not a lot of stars. Most stars are top picks, minus a few lucky picks. I looked at WR over the last 5 years, and by the time the Bills picked all the top guys were gone every year outside of that brutal Cody Ford draft. Beane himself even made a casual reference to the fact that the Bengals built their team by sucking...he doesn't have that luxury.