No_Matter_What

All good. You're right, the point was to give your own grade. I just think yours is harsh

Yeah no question about Chiefs. Mahomes alone makes it A+ no matter what. I just tried to find teams that drafted well and Saints really stand out. I was sort of hoping for more discussion about this from people who know players in other teams more than I do. Who did really well in that draft? Who did really suck? Anyway, I think it is pretty clear how hard is to find even 3 long-term starters in one draft. I don't have the capacity to look, but is there any other team in the league other than Saints which will even keep 3 players fro that draft in 2021 (i.e. five seasons)? Saints will, since Lattimore and Ramczyk are playing under 5th year option (and don't have longterm contract so far), Kamara was resigned longterm and Marcus Williams was resigned on 1yr deal. Not here not now please That is sort of the point - grade it after 4 years. You can be sure that I will come up with same thread next year. But if Josh doesn't regress from any reason, I don't think many will grade it other than A even if Phillips is gone and Edmunds doesn't get better. Don't want to argue, but if you want to grade it B due to Zay and Peterman, you are in my view saying that you need to hit on all picks up to 5th round to gain an A, which is almost impossible. In my view 3 top players, including two playing on key position, should almost always guarantee an A, otherwise the grading system is too harsh.

So there are a couple of threads right now discussing grades of the 2021 draft. Even though most of us grade it for fun, we also realize that it doesn’t make much sense to grade any draft immediately. What makes sense is the grade draft after a couple of years. I think the first time when it’s really worth it is after 4 years. After that time we usually have a large enough sample size for each player, and we also know if players were extended by the original team or are long gone. From the Buffalo perspective, the 2017 draft is also special, since it is the first draft under the new regime. I know that Brandon Beane wasn’t here during the draft, but McDermott was. So I guess this is a great time to revisit the 2017 draft and evaluate how it all started. I am no expert so I mostly want smarter guys to comment on it, but I give my view just to start the discussion. Bills Draft Mahomes factor. When judging the 2017 draft from the Bills perspective it is impossible not to deal with this Mahomes thing first 😀 Yes we could’ve draft him and yes Chiefs did so in our original spot. I guess that for many people whatever we did after that won’t matter much and will always consider it as a failure. I don’t think that is the case, since a) it was really hard to predict Mahomes’ success and above all b) from reasons discussed to death in my view McDermott wasn’t ready to take any QB immediately so it simply wasn’t an option. Therefore, not taking Mahomes doesn’t factor in my grades. Let’s move to actual grading: Round 1 pick 27: CB Tredavious White. Grade A+. Hard to give this pick another grade. Not only he is top 10 pick at worst in any redo, but there is maybe one player drafted behind him (T.J.Watt) who could be considered in his place. 1xAll Pro, 2xPro Bowl, extended after 3 years to a massive extension. Round 2 pick 37: WR Zay Jones. Grade D. Oh well. Not only we drafted below average to bust player so high, but we traded up to do so and gave up late 3rd round pick. It also doesn’t help his case that much better WRs went after him – Curtis Samuel, JuJu-Smith Schuster and Cooper Kupp. He had one solid season in 2018 when we didn’t have an actual NFL receiver on the roster (652y/7TDs), and was then traded next season to Raiders. I don’t think it’s an F since we got some production from him and Beane was able to trade him for 5th round pick this year, where we drafted Tommy Doyle. If Doyle pans out, it will be Zay’s biggest contribution to this team. Round 2 pick 63: OT Dion Dawkins. Grade A. I have a hard time to give this pick anything less than A. We traded up for him giving up two 5th round selections, but I guess it is fully worth it when you get above average franchise LT at the end of 2nd round. He took over LT position five games into his rookie season and then started all 59 following games. Re-signed to a large extension this offseason. Round 5 pick 163: LB Matt Milano. Grade A+. I know there are discussions about Milano on this board, but getting someone like him in 5th round among all those names I’ve never heard of is amazing. No matter how we view him, he just signed quite a massive extension and he is an integral part of this team’s success and future. When doing this I found that we gained that pick from New England in exchange for their signing of RFA RB Mike Gillislie, which makes me smile. Round 5 pick 171: QB Nathan Peterman. Grade D. I really don’t know what to say. He was a disaster here, but somehow he is still in the league. It can be anything between C and F imo. Round 6 pick 195: LB Tanner Vallejo. Grade C. I have no idea how to grade picks like this. He played here his rookie season, then left. He didn’t pan out, but you generally don’t expect that from 6th round picks. What’s interesting is that he is still in the league and just had his best season with the Cardinals and resigned there for 2y/4m. Overall Bills grade: A I was considering A+ actually. If you get All Pro CB, franchise LT and one more top player from the same draft without mortgaging future, I don’t think it can be grade any worse than A. I keep it this way, since A+ should be probably reserved for draft when we don’t completely waste couple of 2nd day picks. Even though the idea is to discuss primarily the Bills draft, I think we can have a look at other teams as well. My random thoughts: AFC East teams blew this one big time. Jets drafted safeties Adams and Maye, but after them it was a disaster. Adams was not a bad player, but I don’t think you draft him so high even when you know how good he will be, and less so without knowing that. His biggest contribution was how the Jets robbed the Seahawks when trading him. I don’t think Dolphins have drafted an impact player. DE Harris busted, LB McMillan left after two seasons, and others are journeymen at best. Patriots didn’t draft until late third and didn’t draft anybody relevant. Best draft had without doubt Saints - Lattimore, Ramczyk, Marcus Williams, Kamara, Anzalone, Hendrickson. They get an A+ since it is really sick. Teams with good draft include Steelers (T.J. Watt, Smith-Schuster), Chiefs (Mahomes, Hunt), Texans (Watson, Cunningham), Browns (Garrett, Njoku, Ogunjobi) and Bucs (Chris Goodwin, O.J.Howard). The 49ers had a fun draft since they completely whiffed early (Thomas, Foster) but then grabbed Kittle in the 5th round. 3 WRs went in top 10 and while two of them are good NFL players (Corey Davis, Mike Williams), they were certainly overdrafted. Ross is a complete bust in my book. What are your grades/thoughts? Link to the draft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_NFL_Draft

I would really like to know how bad it would be viewed by Addison/teammates if Addison was cut despite he took paycut earlier in the year. Do you guys think this a factor for Beane? Also, I didn't see it posted, is there somewhere updated spread sheet with Bills depth chart? I would love to see it.

Judging by Beane's moves so far I guess we will draft another 5'10' WR with 4.40 speed at pick 212.

Well this topic escalated rather quickly As many of you said it is too soon to deal with this but it will be really interesting what will happen. Thats a lot of DEs in the room right now.

Who did you want in the 2nd round when the Bills were on the clock? Sry poll now edited.

Browns are having a strong draft and have really strong roster on the paper.

I know it is little bit early but I am curious what do you guys think. If I remember correctly last season we had 10 DL on roster: Hughes, Addison, Epenesa, Johnson, Jefferson, Murphy, Oliver, Butler, Phillips, Zimmer. We usually dressed 9 of them based on their health and form. From these guys 2 have left (Murphy and Jefferson), and 3 were added - Lotulelei, Rousseau and Obada. So we need to cut/trade one guy and make inactive one more. Who do you guys think are the most likely candidates as of now? I guess Zimmer is the obvious choice for cutting, but if we dress 9 one more needs to be omitted on gamedays. Is it Phillips as things stand right now? I am not sure if he is 1T or 3T, but if he is Star's primary backup then we need to make inactive someone else. Things could get even more interesting if we draft 1TDT round 3 or 5.

Go on record: who did you want when the Bills were on the clock in the 1st round?

Mike Mayock: Let's make the biggest reach as usual. Saints: Hold my beer.

Superbowl you say Zach? Trying to remind us right Josh?

Or 7 am here in Europe 🤪

I'll go with Terrace Marshall. This thread is amazing btw. If I counted correctly there are 29 (!) different players guessed.

Thanks, I am aware of @Dont Stop Billeiving work and it is amazing for gathering info about prospects. I just meant some more simple spreadsheet with just list of players where can I easily mark who is taken and see who is not. I guess I will not be lazy and do my own afterall 😀

This seems like a good place to ask - is there a fellow TBDer who has his own draft board on some kind of spread sheet and is willing to share it (here or via PM)? There were some last year and for me it was very effective tool how to see who is left on the board. As for the draft itself, the only outcome I will not be happy with is if we reach for CB with 2nd round grade. Anything else is fine. Trade up, trade down, RB at 30, any project DE, speedy WR, any OL, any athletic freak on other positions. We will be picking around 6 am CET so I need to stay up whole night, so make it worthwhile Mr. Beane!

Well the thing is that if they want Fields they likely need to give up both first to do so.

So most fans here prefer some combination of DE, CB and WR in first three rounds and Chiefs fans comes here to mock us RB after trade up and DT, who is projected to be on board when Bills pick in 3rd round. Yeah makes total sense. That is amazing news unfortunately you just traded our 3rd round pick, so not sure how is that relevant.

Both Rousseau and Phillips won't be picked in the first round.

I don't think this deserves its own thread just to bash PFF, but still find it hilarious... so I found the most recent thread where PFF is mentioned and leave it here. https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-ranking-all-32-nfl-rosters-ahead-of-the-2021-nfl-draft Bills are rated 5th in some kind of their offseason rankings. But there is a funny quote: "It’ll be interesting to monitor how much Allen regresses in 2021, but this team is again looking dangerous and should have no issues repeating as AFC East champions."

Amazing, thanks for posting.

Exercise is fine, result is not. I don't watch college but I've been hearing for three months on TBD how Shelvin is one of the candidates for 1TDT for our 3rd round pick. And somehow we just took him in second. Weird.

This looks like a solid list for our round 3 pick.

RB Travis Ettiene, Clemson WR Kadarius Toney, Florida WR Elijah Moore, Ole Miss WR Terrace Marshall, LSU OT Teven Jenkins, Oklahoma State OT Jalen Mayfield, Michigan OT Liam Eichenberg, Notre Dame DE Jayson Oweh, Penn State DE Joseph Ossai, Texas LB Zaven Collins, Tulsa CB Tyson Campbell, Georgia CB Eric Stokes, Georgia

The Jags and @NewEra are on the clock!