VW82

Part of me wonders if we'd be this excited about a guy named Fred Williams. There's just something about the name "Duke" that inspires confidence. Edit: also, the CFL is a great place for a WR to hone his craft. I've always wondered why more stand outs there aren't given the same chance.

Why is everyone here so worried about the Jets? They're a dumpster fire. I actually feel bad for them...sort of, but not really.

Very logical post. Username checks out.

As others have said, BPA...but no a$$holes please.

Didn't realize that part. Thanks for clearing it up!

Wow. Even if it's fully guaranteed I have to think that's a better deal than what we signed Morse for. Everyone cites the age gap, but Paradis was the better / healthier player, no?

This is where I'm at. I don't know anything about this guy but I completely trust McD to figure out our DB situation.

Do you mean big as in physically large, or big time (i.e. a star wideout)? If it's the second then I agree but that's tough to acquire. If it's the first, then I disagree. We already went that route last year, and it turns out Josh isn't precise enough to fit the ball into tight spaces. Big guys have a harder time getting open unless they're stars, which again are very hard to acquire. We're better off finding players who do a good job of getting open, regardless of size (though usually they're smaller players).

His 2015 performance is definitely cause for hope. I personally think it had more to do with Larry's one last HOF season and Palmer playing like an MVP. That offense was incredible. You can't take away Brown's production though, and there's no denying he's got wheels. Hopefully he'll continue to improve and get the drops under control.

His only YPC season > 16.5 was last year. Previously he'd been in the 13-15 range. Also, he didn't even qualify on that list. Either way, he's still on the low end for catch percentage as most of those deep threats are in the 55-65% range, with the elite guys above 70%. Brown has been low 40s to low 50s with the exception of two outlier seasons - one good, one bad.

I have to believe we take an Oline guy early in the draft to compete for a starting spot. We're still weak on talent there IMO.

His catch percentage with Flacco was 53% which would have put him 40th out of 55 deep threat receivers. Not great. How do you explain the two years prior? He was 48th in 2016 and dead last in 2017 with Carson Palmer. Again, some of it can be explained by bad QB play but there's a lot of evidence, including what you see when you watch him play, that he's just not great at getting open or catching the football.

Yes but his catch percentage is terrible even considering he's running a fair share of deep routes. If we just look at last year for receivers with at least 50 targets and a YPC greater than 12 (to rule out guys working mostly underneath), Brown ranked 54th out of 55 receivers @ 43.3%. The only guy worse than that was KB. In 2017 Brown was dead last in catch percentage using those same criteria. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/play-index/psl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=single&year_min=2018&year_max=2018&season_start=1&season_end=-1&pos[]=wr&draft_year_min=1936&draft_year_max=2018&draft_slot_min=1&draft_slot_max=500&draft_pick_in_round=pick_overall&conference=any&draft_pos[]=qb&draft_pos[]=rb&draft_pos[]=wr&draft_pos[]=te&draft_pos[]=e&draft_pos[]=t&draft_pos[]=g&draft_pos[]=c&draft_pos[]=ol&draft_pos[]=dt&draft_pos[]=de&draft_pos[]=dl&draft_pos[]=ilb&draft_pos[]=olb&draft_pos[]=lb&draft_pos[]=cb&draft_pos[]=s&draft_pos[]=db&draft_pos[]=k&draft_pos[]=p&c1stat=targets&c1comp=gt&c1val=50&c2stat=rec_yds_per_rec&c2comp=gt&c2val=12&c5val=1.0&order_by=catch_pct

Yeah but his catch percentage has been bad every year he's been in the league except for his sophomore season. He had several high target, low catch games earlier inthe year too. I suspect Bills think some of this has to do with the bad to terrible QB play he's had to deal with over the years, but some of it is certainly on Brown. Hopefully he's better in Buffalo.

Again, yes he's fast but it sure looked to me like he doesn't get open very often, and when he does he has a tendency to drop the ball. If all you can do is run verticals opposing defenses will sit on that. Maybe I'm being too hard on him. His catch percentage is just awful though which jives with what I'm seeing when I watch him play. Even fast receivers need to be able to run a full route tree to keep you honest.

Looks like another guy who’s had trouble staying on the field. Individually, all these signings feel super expensive for what we’re getting though I guess that’s just free agency for ya. That said, none of them are cap killers (so far). FA always scares the ***** out of me.

The number is fine if he can actually play. I'm questioning whether he's any good. He was really ineffective in the games I watched, though he did score a TD against us so there's that.

I will admit choking just a little when I saw the number but he's definitely a good player and center was probably our number one off season need. I'm a little concerned with all the missed time but presumably they feel like he's healthy and will be able to stay on the field. I suspect Paradis would have cost us (maybe not another team) significantly more.

I like this signing a lot less than Cole Beasley. Are we sure Brown can get open, or catch for that matter? Dude seems to have a lot of issues hanging onto the football. I get he's fast and right now Foster is the only vertical threat, but this seems like a lot of money for a guy who might not even be a top 4 wideout.

Remember last year when McBeane were making a bunch of head scratcher moves in FA? Feels like eons ago. Beasley is exactly the type of receiver I was hoping we'd sign: he's good in the slot, you can move him around, and he's very good at getting open. I get that everyone wants a prototypical number one guy with size, but Josh needs players who can consistently get open so he isn't always having to throw to players on the run which he struggles with. Get open, sit down in a soft spot in coverage and wait for the missile to hit you in the numbers. McBeane are showing a much better understanding of not just team needs but which types of players are needed in order to fit with our existing guys. It's encouraging.

Hard to argue with stealing a member of that vaunted Chiefs Oline, but the number of missed games is troubling. Hope he can stay healthy for us.

Some of that maybe true. I have no doubt AB would prefer a big market with an established QB and winning culture, but that’s all secondary to $$. Think of it this way. NFL has a hard cap. There are only a few teams with 1. Need for big time WR, 2. Lots of cap space, and 3. willingness to spend that cap space on re-doing AB’s contract AND spend the draft capital to get the trade done. Why would a good agent like Drew Rosenhaus want to eliminate one of the few teams who fit all those categories? Even if AB really didn’t want to come to Buffalo, the best way to do that is to quietly and respectfully tell Bills, so that you can still use the threat of them as leverage with another team for a better deal. You only go the public scorched earth route if Bills are trying to trade for you without meeting your contract demands, which is what happened. If AB gets traded somewhere good and there’s little new money involved then I’ll admit I’m wrong.

This is so desperate. He's doing whatever he can to gain back some semblance of control over the situation. Wherever he winds up, it'll be because that team both paid the most in draft compensation and the most in new money on re-doing his contract.

No one knows anything for sure, but by far the most likely scenario is that Drew Rosenhaus, AB's agent, leaked the finished trade deal to Rappaport in order to put public pressure on the Bills so he could negotiate an extension ahead of the trade going through. Once the trade is signed and done, AB loses a big part of his negotiating position. I suspect the Bills and Rosenhaus had talked extension ahead of time, and so we knew what it might take, but preferred to entertain those talks somewhat privately when AB was already a part of the team. That's not to AB's advantage if his goal is the get the most $$, hence why we saw all the theatrics about him not reporting, etc. When we saw that, we walked away.

i don't understand our need to distort the very simple and easy to understand truth -- that we agreed to a deal with the Steelers with the understanding of what it might take to extend Brown, only to have his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, leak the trade and force an ugly extension negotiation pre-trade which we balked at -- so that we can make up silly alternate realities for ourselves which paint everyone involved to be idiots. It's so insecure. If this was meant to be a joke, then I guess I missed it.