glazeduck

My overly simplified logic to trading next year's 1 vs. this year's 2 is twofold... 1. Call it the "gas pricing" strategy -- just like $2.99.99 will always feel less than $3.00, a first round pick will never not be a first round pick, and a second round pick will never BE a first round pick (so it psychologically, could have at least slightly greater perceived value in trade negotiations -- maybe you can get a 5 back or something because of the number)... 2. This year's picks are already set in stone -- we have the 8th pick in the 2nd round -- that's a valuable (relative to the round). Next year's picks are not. Obviously it' hyperbole, but if Q makes some MASSIVE difference and this team wins the Super Bowl, our first round pick next year is 32 -- not a good pick (relative to the round). Beyond that, with all of our free agency acquisitions, it's not hard to envision our pick at least being middle of the pack next year. Time value of money and all that...

Everyone is done evaluating -- have been for weeks now. That I can promise you. Short of a major issue like an injury or something unknown coming out, teams know (or, think they know) who these guys are. That doesn't mean draft strategy isn't continuing to evolve (which is probably more what you're saying)... I said in another thread that if a couple QBs go higher than expected (which they always do) that it wouldn't be unsurprising for Q to fall to 5 or 6. At that point, Buffalo could absolutely get up to get him...

I think you can make that argument -- certainly ONE OF the top WRs. There's a lot of ways to play WR -- not everyone needs to be Desean Jackson fast or run Antonio Brown type routes... When you watch DK's tape a few things stand out: 1. He's extremely difficult to press and is a great hand fighter -- that creates separation 2. His mass + explosion creates a "snowball rolling downhill" effect very quickly, so he's hard to move off his route -- when you're where your QB needs you to be, when he needs you to be there, you don't have to have as much separation (+added bonus of playmaking ability with the ball in his hands) 3. His routes and short area quickness are far from perfect, but his size, strength and general size make him a bear fir defenders to have to work through. If he gets his face across the defender's, he's got him beat, end of story -- that's also separation 4. He's got an enormous catch radius -- that can also create separation both laterally and vertically 5. The concern about his lack of production -- for me -- isn't the lack of production, in itself at all, but rather the inability to have enough game tape to see him play and react to different situations... From the small sample size that there is though, it appears that he's also a very smart, focused and competitive WR. You can see him set up his man mid-route, you see catches that only the most gifted AND focused of players can make, and I don't think I saw one ball thrown his way that he didn't give 110% for. 6. On top of all of that, he can definitely be an effective run blocker, when he wants to be. Cards on the table, I've fully talked myself into DK at this point, and (as has been said many, many times) no question he comes with some uncertainty... But at 9 -- barring Quinnen Williams falling far enough to be gettable -- and with the positive momentum this franchise has going for it, I think hitting on the highest ceiling player in the draft is too exciting of a prospect to pass on. If he's healthy, that is!!!

First of all, I'm as white as they come, so you're barking up the wrong tree there. Second of all, who are all of these "a lot of white wide receivers" that are being "way underdrafted"???? The most successful contemporary white WRs are... Eric Decker -- was coming off of a devastating injury Wes Welker -- tiny, played in what was considered a gimmicky offense in a conference that doesn't play defense Jordy Nelson -- early 2nd round pick -- far from underdrafted Julian Edelman? -- transitioning from playing QB Chris Hogan? -- dude was a lacrosse player Curious to know who all of these brilliant white football players are that you're referring to who were so devastatingly insulted in the draft...

You're right. Figured I'd give him a little benefit of the doubt, but on rereading his post... there's nothing bordering about it.

Boy, someone doesn't bother with subtext, does he? Ignoring your ignorance, and flat-out racism, there's faaaaar too much on the line for coaches and GMs to play racial favorites. Andy Isabella being below "black WRs with much worse production and combine numbers" has more to do with his size and lack of competition than it does with his skin color. But I'm sure you'd be fighting just as hard for his draft status if he were black...

Worth looking at the draft ranges of the players too... Bills brought in 3 WRs slated to go top 50, none later. Meanwhile they brought in 3 later rd. DL. Obviously it's all projection and conjecture at this point, but you could probably also say that the list points to a wr early and a DL later... ?‍♂️

?Yeah, white people have had it soooooo hard...

Except there's statistical precedent here... Of the top 30 all-time leaders in passing yards, you can argue that 3 QBs have "made it" from the Big 12 (and that's including Sam Bradford). Of the top 25 all-time leaders in receiving yards, the best pro is... Wes Welker? Michael Crabtree? Roy Williams? Far from a star-studded list. You can certainly pick out exceptions to the rule, but that doesn't make the rule wrong. The Big 12 doesn't play a lot of defense. I like Brown as a player, but between his size -- not that he can't win a jump ball -- I'm afraid he's going to get destroyed by NFL safeties, and the play style redundancy for the Bills, I'm hoping we pass on him too.

Bills wait until day 2 to take a TE and DL and a lot of this board freaks out. Bills make a big swing on day one (my guess -- trades up for a second, first-rd pick)... Bills figure out a way to get Kendall Sheffield. Bills don't draft a LB until late in day 3, if at all...

This wouldn't surprise me, but would also be disappointing... I know "good enough" is never good enough, but I think our defense, as is, really is good enough to keep us competitive... JA needs weapons. Beasley is a nice add and I like Smokey Brown, but the jury is still very much out on Zay and, while he had an impressive second half to his year, I worry that some of Foster's success was a function of teams: a) making Allen beat them deep; and b) not having much of a scouting report on him/underestimating him as a player. Another way to say the above: I think adding a defensive piece or two could take us from, say a B+ to maybe an A-... Adding someone like DK and Irv Smith could take our offense from C+/B- to potentially a B+/A- range... I like the larger bump, personally...

Too much logic in here, please knock that off!!! There's also the point to be made that DK is just different and fits a need that we have (whereas, Brown does not). Regardless of where he was on the pecking order at Ole Miss, AJ Brown would duplicate Beasley and Zay in too many ways for it to make sense. Buffalo has no one who can do what DK can.

Comparisons to Allen go beyond that... Allen was not a "play it safe" pick -- that would've been Rosen. Allen was a "taking a shot at greatness" pick. Same goes for DK. I said in another thread (or maybe earlier in this one, can't remember) I want, and think Bills fans deserve, a team of greatness, not really goodness. It feels to me like that's what the front office is looking for, to build something special. THAT, more than anything else, is why I'm on the DK train. Let's do something special for once...

Go read the article I posted and you might change your stance a bit. The point is that DK isn't "like all the other workout warriors that come through the draft." He's physically superior to nearly every WR to EVER come through the draft. And more interestingly, the ones who are comparable to him athletically over the past few years are all stars in the league. As a Pac-12 guy, I like Harry a lot too, but he can't sniff DK's jock athletically. And I understand the excitement around Fant and Hock, but I also think one of them will be there to trade up for in the 20s. TEs just do not have as much impact on the game as other positions.

The thing that I don't think most people grasp about DK is how exceptionally rare of an athlete he is. Yes, in terms of purely size, I suppose he could be somewhat similar to James Hardy (R.I.P. You'll never be able to convince me otherwise that a significant amount of him busting wasn't Edwards' fault, but that's another conversation...). I came across this article yesterday <--- DEFINITELY WORTH A READ, it's written for fantasy purposes, but the point works for real football too. It's not just that DK is big, or muscular, or fast, or long, or can jump high... It's that all of those things, in addition to his work on the football field (watch Simms' video at the beginning of this thread or Nate Burleson's breakdown of him in one of the threads) make him a football player that is exceptionally difficult to defend. In the history of football, DK has very few comparisons who touch his athletic measurables. There's a lot of talk about Jonah Williams' floor in his thread, to it's not hard to argue that DK's might even be higher. As I said in an earlier post, if the medicals check out, I'd be very happy with DK at 9. DL is deep, TE is deep, OL is deep and less of an immediate priority...

If we're talking the type of price that many on here are willing to pay for him (mid-late 1/early 2) then we're going to have to strongly agree to disagree. Give me DK, Harry, Butler, Brown or Samuel or Hardman (both of whom are better versions of what you're describing) over Campbell all day. This offense likely won't have one main playmaker, but it has 2 deep threats to stretch the defense vertically, two guys who can make plays in the intermediate game, and two RBs who can at least keep LBs honest... To me, this offense is lacking a guy who can be a bully, who can get first downs by boxing out a DB or go up and get a jump ball. That's decidedly not Campbell... If we're talking 3rd or 4th round, still wouldn't love it, but would be fine with it.

Fair enough. Agree that the context within those statistics is important. My point was more along the lines of showing the poor fit between what people think they're drafting and who he's been so far. Sure, he could be a deep threat because he's fast, but that's also how you end up with Cordarrelle Patterson, and I think we can all agree that that's not who we're wanting to draft with our first round pick...

Quinnen Williams had 26 and 10 in 24 games, and half of those games came as a backup against SEC linemen. Perhaps "struggled" wasn't the right word, but if Ed Oliver is a top 10 pick, I would've expected him to be an absolute wrecking ball for Houston, especially considering the lack of talent across the LOS. 1 1/2 TFLs and 1/3 of a sack per game isn't exactly wrecking things in my opinion. Now juxtapose that against NFL linemen... He's got high bust potential in my mind (and I don't even give a $#!+ about the coach blowup stuff, but that causes questions too...)

A lot of folks on here really want Parris Campbell, I presume because they think his fast 40 time equates to him being a deep threat. But a 4.5 yard average depth of target (aDOT) is the opposite of that. For every time he was targeted 20 yards downfield (for example) he would have to be targeted another 4 times at basically zero yards to accomplish that. And those are just targets! Add to that history of sketchy hands and I just can't see him being a good fit... If we're looking for a big play guy on screens and whatnot, fine, but that seems to be the opposite of the team we're building.

It's what makes the draft so much fun! We all think we know certain things, and then Tyson Alualu ends up as the 9th (11th?) overall pick and it sends the entire sports world to their therapist to question their very existence! I tend to try to take in as much of it as I can and then suss through it logically, using the filter that the closer we are to the draft, the more likely it is to be BS to determine what I believe.

As someone who, in the past has known a few things, I can say that this is true. What's also true, unfortunately, is that we live in a world where wild, complete speculation isn't held accountable because we all just go onto the next thing... plus, there's enough sports outlets and talking heads out there to cover just about every conceivable hot take and outlandish inevitability, so somebody's hot take was going to be right. Then there's the challenge of misinformation, every team uses the media when they need to, and some sources willingly spread false information if it means a tip on something real down the road. Too complex a system to ever ferret out who's looped in, who actually knows what, who's just guessing and who's willfully full of $#!+.

0. Quinnen Williams falls to 5 (because several QBs are traded up for and taken at the top) 1. Bills trade #9, 2019 3rd rd. pick & 2020 3rd rd. pick for #5 to draft Williams. 1b. Bills trade #40 & one of our 4th rd. picks into the late 20s to draft a big WR (order of preference: DK, Butler, Harry) 3. Trade other 4th rd pick & both 7s to get best available TE (if one of top Hock, Fant, Irv, Sternberger, Dax, Knox, Warring, Oliver or Mack are there); Tytus Howard or Nate Davis if not 5. Best available Edge rusher 6. Elijah Holyfield

That all may be true, and I like Hock too, but this team is still too devoid of talent to use a top-10 pick on at TE that's not an obvious Lebron James type player. Especially in a draft when 3rd and 4th rd TEs will be starters in the league -- the delta between Hock and, say, Warring or Oliver doesn't warrant that kind of overspend, in my opinion.

I like a lot of those guys too... I think we're starting to see why the Bills better hope QBs go early. We're in a little bit of no-man's land at 9 if they don't... It's unequivocally too early for Hock or any TE -- same with Marquise, or likely any WR -- Taylor might be gone, Jonah might be a guard (which we no longer need as desperately)... If QBs go early, I think there's a distinct chance that Quinnen could fall far enough that he'd be gettable without throwing in the kitchen sink. If they don't, I'm definitely down with the idea of trading down, if not, I'm starting to embrace the idea of swinging for the fences... Sweat or DK should be there and at that point, probably pose the biggest potential impact on the roster going forward...

A lot of respected NFL people think he's the best DT to come out since Warren Sapp... But sure, let's take an undersized DT who struggled to dominate in the AAC...