Florida Bills Fanatic

This draft is deep in receivers but not so much in pass rushing talent. If Beane picks up a decent WR in free agency, chances of getting a pass rush talent in round one increases significantly. Overall, speculating about the draft before the FA moves are complete is just a wild guessing game. There is a good idea of the positions that need to be improved but not so much about how, when and in what priority Beane will act. I don't plan to spend much energy worrying about it. Beane will do a good job, just has he has done for the last couple of off seasons.

I think you may be correct about Joseph. I was thinking that they may have been ready to move on from Lorenzo when they drafted Joseph but it now appears that they were selecting him to be the heir apparent going into 2020. I should have expected it to be that way. Beane seems to be playing chess when everyone else is playing checkers.

This is a very difficult issue for many people to discuss. I'm not sure that there is one single silver bullet answer that will deliver the kinds of results that many people want to have. IMHO the situation could be improved through better developmental assignments so that there is a significant high quality diverse candidate pool to fill openings. OC and DC positions have been the main stepping stones to become head coaches. Creating career paths to prepare future candidates to succeed should be an essential part of the league's human resources policies. Just guaranteeing that a minority gets interviewed for an opening is just insincere window dressing. As others have pointed out, owners are going to select the candidates that they believe will win the most games and championships. By the way, major university programs shouldn't get a pass on this subject either.

Miami has been consistently poor at drafting talent. They have turned over some of the front office people but many of the scouts are unchanged. It is also believed that the owner interjects his influence with a negative outcome. Granted, they have a lot of draft picks but they stripped the proven talent from the roster to get them. Fitz was the only guy keeping them in games. If they are going to compete, it will be more like 2022 or 2023 and that's if they hit on the vast majority of the draft picks.

Good overview, thanks for taking the time to share it with us.

What I gather from reading these posts is that we have all identified areas where the roster can be improved and I can't say that I disagree with any of them. Prioritizing them is a different story. We've all watched Beane in action. He'll go after available free agents and pay what the market dictates as long as he sees the value ( like Morse) to fill his list of needs. Thereafter for remaining needs, he'll go after the rest in the draft based on the value of the player at the round where he is available. He won't blindly pick any position just because he has some artificial priority in his head. If he doesn't have a first round grade on a receiver at pick 22, he'll select another position of need. If no other player in a position of need is graded as a value at pick 22, he will probably try to trade back. If a good player in a position of need slides in the draft where the value to move up is good, Beane won't hesitate to move up as he has done in the past. Identifying the needs is easy. Prioritizing them is a fool's errand.

Not really, because his time with the Vikings went poorly. I hope he stays in Buffalo because I believe that he has done a very nice job with the defense.

He has to be the most inconsistent play caller in the league. He was aggressive in the first half and crawled in a shell for the second half. His first down play calls in the second half were horrible and led to a lot of third and long situations. They had one outside screen call to Singletary that went for 38 yards and he never ran it again. He has been a problem all year. I hope Cleveland hires him.

There are some others that may become available also. Bridgewater, Winston, Mariota, Foles, or Alex Smith just to name a few.

If you want to get upset about BS officiating, focus on the second half kickoff. When the player fields the ball in the end zone, it has to be downed to kill the play. In this instance, the player flips a live ball forward toward the Referee making it an illegal forward pass in the end zone. The whistle was not blown because the Referee knew it was still a live ball. As the player began to flip the ball toward the Referee, the Ref raised his hand to indicate to the player not to throw him the ball. The referee let the ball fall to the ground and roll. An illegal forward pass among other various offensive penalties committed in the end zone results in a safety. The Bills should have been awarded 2 points and received a free kick. Instead, Houston was awarded the ball at their 25 yard line because some officials thought that the kick returner intended to kill the play even though he didn't do it according to the rules. It is not the role of the officials to determine the intentions of the player. In this case, all they needed to determine was whether he downed the ball or he didn't. Review of the video clearly shows that he didn't. The correct interpretation of the play would have changed the entire second half. Forget the penalties on Hughes and Cody Ford. The real travesty was the blown call on this kickoff. McD should have gone off the rails when the officials made this interpretation but he didn't.

You could very well be right and I agree with you. We'll know for sure if they sign one of the experienced guys that are likely to become free agents.

Typically teams overreach to draft wide receivers. This year will not be an exception, so a couple of the best guys will be gone pretty early. The good news is that there are several guys that will probably develop into really good players and should be available on day two. I expect Beane to go after one really good veteran to play on the outside opposite John Brown and draft a guy to develop. One guy that comes to mind is Breshad Perriman. He really played well after Evans and Godwin were injured. Tampa won't be able to afford to sign him. There are others that will be released in Jacksonville, Rams, and Cincinnati (Green). Even Amari Cooper could hit the open market if their contract talks continue to go nowhere. I believe Beane will be looking to draft one of the guys that has some length and speed to go deep. I don't think another Smurf is in the cards.

We'll know for sure when the last injury report comes out. Even if they play, they will be limited. If that is the case, I'll be glad to see them out there at less than 100%.

Amen

There will be some better options available in the off season with decent experience; Chase Daniels, Case Keenum, Flacco, and some identified in other posts. We need to remember that we base our opinions on a very limited exposure to Barkley. The coaching staff has seen him all preseason and everyday in practice. I trust that they know what needs to be done. If they need to upgrade, they'll make a move to create a competition in training camp.

I don't think he will get the job either, but current QB coach ( Ken Dorsey) is the likely replacement. Probably why they hired him to begin with. He is the key guy in the development of Allen and is thought to be talented enough to be a future HC in the league. Although it wouldn't be good to lose Daboll, IMHO it won't be a total disaster. At times, I haven't been a big fan of his play calling but I have observed the continuous improvement of Allen.

This is not an unlikely scenario.

I was going to say the same thing but I was not going to be quite as polished as you. You're obviously a gentleman and a scholar. Thanks for the post, go Bills!

I may be in the minority on this but I think we should sit all of the key starters on offense and defense. Something like a concussion could keep them out of the first playoff game. I like what the Ravens are doing with their important players and McD should be doing the same thing. You can't sit every starter but even we all know the key players that have no viable replacement on the team. Entering the playoffs with a healthy team is more important than a meaningless win. Getting Ty back is a pretty big deal.

To be more specific, no one is afraid of the Bills' wide receivers. They see a lot of single coverage with single safety over the top. They don't get open on time consistently. This forces Allen to hold the ball which makes the o-line's job that much harder. That needs to be fixed this off season. A one armed Watt is better than any of the other guys that Houston put out there in his absence. He will be a test for Cody Ford. I expect the Bills to run some trap plays right at him to slow down his up field rush. Until we see him on the field, we don't really know how game ready he will actually be.

You've accurately described the Beane playbook. There will be some decent FA's available that we don't know about right now. Coaching changes, cap clearing, and skill fit issues will make players available that can help the team. We just need to watch what Beane does in free agency and look at the remaining needs to get a good idea of his targets in the draft. The "chase a WR with the first round pick crowd" may need to keep a box of Kleenex handy for all of their crying. I expect him to get another good FA WR and draft a good prospect on day two because it is a very deep draft and rookie WR's usually take a year to be big contributors. I say this because of the way Beane approached the TE need this year. Kroft was the solid veteran to fill the hole and Knox and Sweeney are the value picks from a fairly deep draft class. With all of that said, can't we just wait until the off-season so that we can enjoy our second trip to the playoffs in three years?

I agree. He's pretty good on the inside trap plays because he hits the hole without hesitation. When he is forced to turn his shoulders, he lacks the speed to get to the outside.

I agree with you. Bills were in a single high safety look with Hyde playing center field. In that alignment, his job was to keep everything in front of him. That obviously didn't happen as Hurst got behind everyone.

I agree that he disappoints more often than not. He compiles a lot of stats in garbage time when throwing against prevent defenses. As some posts have already pointed out, for a guy that seems to be held in relatively high regard, he does not have a track record of winning big games. A good front office would have brought in someone to compete with Rivers to either improve him or replace him. They haven't done that at least up to this point. I expect that to change in order to shake things up and create some fan interest as they move into their new stadium. Only the owner and Rivers have remained the same over the last several unsuccessful seasons. I expect that to change in 2020.

I agree with you. Adding more real play makers to the wide receiver group will facilitate his further development as well.