DCOrange

Seems like a bad look for both guys. Obviously Oliver wayyy overreacted here but it also seems like a dumb rule that only active players are allowed to stay warm lol.

I don't think that's a concern; there just isn't a RB worth taking remotely near the top 10. I do think they may very well target a RB at some point though. It's at least possible that it's just coincidence that they've seen so many of the top RBs; the only one that they've seen that I would say may have been the big draw in the first place was Benny Snell, but they easily could have been more interested in Georgia's team rather than Kentucky (and it could have been Josh Allen from Kentucky too). I personally think it would be wise to take a RB on Day 3 or maybe late on Day 2, but we'll see. I do think the Damien Harris connection is something to keep an eye on though, and he could be a target with the Bills 2nd round pick.

I think Florio pretty much summed up my thoughts. I understand that fighting with the coach is a bad look, but it seems like this rule is only in place so that the coach has an excuse to bully players.

Interesting. He doesn't have Texas listed in his spreadsheet as a team that Buffalo has scouted yet.

Obviously some of the limitations is that for example, they've technically scouted Shea Patterson (Michigan's QB) twice now, but do we really think he is what drew them there? I doubt it; it was most likely their defense or possibly Karan Higdon. But I think what I've compiled here is different from saying "We've gone to three Oklahoma State games, so we must be locked in on Mason Rudolph". For example, the only team that we've gone to see three times so far is Alabama. I think that makes a lot of sense because they have so many NFL prospects; I would guess going to multiple games has allowed them to focus on guys in game #2 or 3 that they weren't able to focus on in game #1 for example. So I'm not really reading into the fact that they scouted this team multiple times and therefore must be locked in on this one player that plays for that team. I think the fact that, for example, they've scouted every single team that the top 10 DTs play on is probably an indicator that they will further address the DT position this offseason. The likelihood of it just being coincidence that they've just so happened to scout literally all 10 of the top 10, including three of them multiple times, is pretty unlikely IMO. Likewise with the CB position. This is especially true when you further factor in the fact that these guys are easily the main draws for NFL teams. Like Buffalo isn't going to Houston to watch whoever their WR is. Maybe they notice another player that stands out while watching Ed Oliver, but Ed Oliver is without a doubt what drew Buffalo to that game. I think seeing Greedy Williams against Auburn and Alabama's WRs was most likely one of the main draws for them to go see those games (along with just wanting to see all of Alabama's guys). Point being, I'm not trying to use this analysis to single out specific players that I think Buffalo will take; I'm just using it to paint the picture of which positions they appear to be taking a lot of looks at, and in the case of DT and CB particularly, I think the conclusion is pretty concrete; Buffalo wants to upgrade those positions. I don't think there was any reason to believe that Buffalo was locked in on Mason Rudolph last year, but the fact that they were in attendance for games featuring literally every QB that was worth a damn strongly indicated that they'd be prioritizing a QB and that obviously proved to be the case.

I don't know about the Bills, but I think there's a lot of WR prospects in this draft that are on par with how Amari has played in recent years. Amari was a better prospect coming out of Alabama though.

That's why I clarified specifically in regard to the WR position; there's so many of them this year that just because we haven't scouted a ton of Matt Miller's top 10 WRs doesn't mean we haven't scouted the guys that Buffalo actually thinks are the top 10 WRs. I'm not as convinced regarding O-Line though. Perhaps they simply plan on taking a guy like Jonah or Little early and therefore don't feel the need to scout the others, but they've scouted O-Line pretty sparingly across the board. If there's a takeaway regarding O-Line, I think it would be that they plan on addressing it in free agency or they're already locked in on a couple prospects and don't think they need to scout the rest.

Original Post: https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2018/11/14/18094913/who-the-buffalo-bills-have-been-scouting-for-the-draft Update: Matt Miller has updated his big board and positional rankings, and so I've gone through and updated everything. You can see it all at the link here: https://www.buffalorumblings.com/201...-4-round-billsThe Bills have seemingly expanded their WR scouting quite a bit since the last update, which is a welcome sight to see.My post on BR includes updates at each position as well as two separate 4-round mocks of what the Bills might look to do based on who they've scouted so far. Is it realistic to expect them to have personally gone to games for every prospect that they draft? No, but these mocks should give an idea of the types of players I could see them going for based on who has been scouted so far.

I'm fine with it in this case because depending on who you ask, Ridley and Johnson are both top 3 WRs in this class. In all likelihood, Buffalo will be able to draft WRs in the 3-5th round that are on par with any WR that goes in the 1st or 2nd round. This class is crazy deep (if everyone declares).

For what it's worth, Astro's mock for the Bills right now: I'm not sure that I believe either of the Michigan guys (Bush and Winovich) fall that far, but man this mock would pretty much be a dream come true even if I'm only lukewarm on Jonah from what I've heard of him

The only person I know that consistently tweets stuff like this out is Chase Goodbread, but even he didn't report that one. The only reason we know about them going to see that game is because one of the writers from The Athletic tagged along with Brandon Beane while he was working on a "Day in the Life" type of article. The spreadsheet in the OP of this thread does a pretty good job of staying up to date, and I also recently posted a FanPost on Buffalo Rumblings with a list based on The Athletic and Chase Goodbread: https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2018/11/14/18094913/who-the-buffalo-bills-have-been-scouting-for-the-draft

Mississippi as in Ole Miss? Buffalo just went to see them play against Deebo's South Carolina team this past week.

Don't think this necessarily needs its own thread, but I threw a post together over on Buffalo Rumblings basically looking at Matt Miller's big board (he lists his top 10 at each position) and looking at who on the list Buffalo has scouted. https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2018/11/14/18094913/who-the-buffalo-bills-have-been-scouting-for-the-draft

Looks like Matt Miller is another guy that doesn't have Anthony Johnson among the top 10 WRs in the class.

I'm guessing that this has already been brought up, but per Football Outsiders, Carolina is the #14 rush defense in the league versus Buffalo being #12. Buffalo has improved pretty dramatically from a year ago, but Carolina hasn't fallen off much at all. And both of their DTs are rated much higher by PFF than Star. It's really the pass defense where Carolina has struggled this year, which as we know, Star has almost zero impact on.

Definitely possible. Hard to tell if he's pointing up for a jump ball or just sticking his arm up to say he's open. Regardless, this was by far the best Zay has ever looked

It's hard to tell because the camera is a little blurry/it happens pretty quickly, but are my eyes deceiving me or does Zay call for Barkley to throw it up high for him and then Barkley literally throws it so low that Zay has to dive to the ground to catch it?

Yeah, the Steelers leaked the "terms" of their contract offer to paint him in a bad light, when in reality, they were offering him very little in terms of guaranteed money. I can't say I blame him for sitting out the year; playing would have risked his next big contract and Pittsburgh wasn't negotiating in good faith.

It's still obviously great to see it that packed, but they pretty much gave tickets away this week to fill it up. It really is great to see though.

Yep, and Beane and Schoen (or however you spell it) just got to watch Deebo in person too; definitely seems like a guy to keep an eye on in the offseason. He seems to be a very divisive prospect. I've seen him listed around the #20 WR in the class by multiple reputable draft guys and then some people like Pro Football Focus for example see him as like a top 3-5 WR in this class. He seems to have a pretty gigantic range right now.

This doesn't necessarily mean a ton to the question in the OP, but just hypothetically speaking, how many of the current Bills starters on offense do we envision starting for an NFL team next year? I think there's a decent chance Alabama's current defense has more starters in the NFL next year than the Bills current offense does.

By my count, Buffalo has now scouted 14 WR/TEs that have been mentioned as potential 1st/2nd round picks (well, I guess 13 since DK Metcalf was out this past weekend, but I'm sure they did some sniffing around about him while they were in town): WRs: N'Keal Harry JJ Arcega-Whiteside Hollywood Brown Anthony Johnson Riley Ridley AJ Brown DK Metcalf Demarkus Lodge Deebo Samuel Bryan Edwards TEs: Noah Fant Albert Okwuegbunam Kaden Smith Irv Smith

Maybe the best part of this article is the fact that between those two games alone, Beane got to see like 5 pass-catchers that are projected to be in the 1st/2nd round discussion. By my count, we're up to 14 WR/TEs that Buffalo has scouted that have a chance of going in the 1st or 2nd round.

I think Buffalo probably wins, but I just don't think a 28.5 point spread is realistic. IMO, Quinnen Williams and Raekwon Davis would feast on Teller/Bodine/Miller and the pieces that Buffalo has on offense just aren't talented enough to hang 30 on Alabama IMO, which is basically what they'd need to beat the spread. I'm sure the defense would shut Alabama down for the most part; I just don't think the offense is talented enough to hold up their end. One of their DTs might end up being the #1 pick this year and the other is likely going to be a top 10 pick lol