Arm of Harm

I can definitely see the value of adding Pitts. Pitts has the chance to become a special player. A special player normally has a longer career than a run-of-the-mill player, and can change games in ways a normal player can't. It would be difficult for defenses to try to double both Diggs and him. He'd give Allen a great outlet and a great target, especially if we once again run into a playoff situation where literally all our WRs are hurt. The other value I see is in upgrading our OL. During the regular season the OL did well at pass protection but a poor job of run blocking. All it takes is one OL to get defeated on a running play, and that can easily spoil the whole play. During all three postseason games the Bills did not play at the same level as they had for most of the regular season. An important reason for that decline in play was the OL's failure to do a good job at either run blocking or pass protection. If you could land a good, quality OG at #30 overall, that's a very solid step towards solving that problem. Then maybe go back to addressing the lines in round 2, with a 1 tech DT. Add another OG/C in round 3, and you're good to go! I'd be very excited if this is how things played out. The round 1 OL could help solve what was a huge problem for the offense in the postseason, and the 1 tech DT would help solve one of the defense's biggest problems.

Trading up for Pitts could definitely make a lot of sense, depending on how things play out. If I'm Brandon Beane, I wouldn't push too hard to get into the top 10 - 12 picks of the draft for Pitts. But, if he falls to maybe pick 15 or so, that's when I'd start making a major push. One potential downside to a guy like Pitts is the quality and depth of the Bills' WR corps. There are only so many targets to go around. You'd obviously want to target your TE a lot more with Pitts than without him, and that means taking targets away from one of the best and deepest WR corps in the league. Don't get me wrong--I'd be absolutely thrilled to see Pitts in a Bills uniform--but his value would be somewhat diminished due to the targets he takes from the WRs. If getting Pitts would be too expensive in terms of draft picks, the two other options I'd consider would be pass rusher and offensive lineman. It's been said that this is not a good draft to need a pass rusher, and the recent signings seem to diminish pass rusher as a need for this year. So at that point I'd be looking to improve the interior of the offensive line, either by taking a guy at 30 or trading down. I'd also like to see the Bills add a 1 tech DT, but probably not in the first round.

I don't care about any of that. You pay a player to compensate him for the value he'll provide going forward, not for the good things he's done in the past. Hughes is a guy who's on the wrong side of 30 who's gotten 4.5 sacks a season the last two years. If Hughes were to take a pay cut down to the level you'd normally pay for a guy with his production, what moves would that enable? I'm not Brandon Beane, so I don't have the answer to that. If there's nothing else Beane would like to do with that cap space, fine. Pay Hughes the extra money. If however Beane could put that extra cap space to good use, I'd like to see him give Hughes a pay cut, down to a level commensurate with his recent production.

Suppose there was a 32 year old DE who'd been playing for some other team. Over the past two seasons, this DE has generated 4.5 sacks per year while missing a total of 1 game. Brandon Beane signs this 32 year old DE to $9.45 million per season. Would a signing like that make you happy? Would you jump on your couch in sheer joy, thrilled with the great value Beane was getting for his cap dollars? If you wouldn't be happy about spending $9.45 million per season on a 4.5 sack guy from some other team, you shouldn't be happy about Hughes' contract. The Bills are right up against the cap, and every single dollar needs to be spent prudently, with value in mind.

If Bill from NYC is okay with using a first round pick on a RB, it's a sign. A sign the end of times is at hand!

I fell out of my chair after reading that. All three of the players you're interested in are either OL or DL? That's so not like you Bill! I was totally expecting you to focus on all the DBs and RBs you think the Bills should be drafting with their early picks!

1) The Bucs did an outstanding job with defensive coaching. Instead of the defeatist, "give 'em the short stuff and hope they make a mistake" soft zone philosophy the Bills employed against the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game, the Bucs made them earn everything. This was exactly the defensive philosophy I wish the Bills had employed in their game against the Chiefs. 2) The Bucs players played much better than the Bills had. The Bucs controlled the line of scrimmage on both offense and defense, whereas the Bills were dominated by the Chiefs on both sides of the ball. 3) I wish the AFC Championship Game had been officiated the way the Super Bowl had been. The Chiefs were doing things which beyond question should have been flagged in the AFC Championship Game. Nice to see that stuff finally get flagged, even if the flags came a game too late. 4) I said it at the time and I'll say it again: the Bills defense was absolutely humiliated, destroyed, completely dominated by the Chiefs offense. There is no excuse for that. On the 7 Chiefs drives which didn't end in kneel-downs, the Chiefs scored 5 TDs and 1 FG. That defensive effort was bad enough that it alone determined the outcome of the Bills/Chiefs game, without reference to anything the Bills offense did. Compare that to the 9 points the Bucs defense allowed the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. Yes, I realize that could have been 12 points had the Chiefs kicked a field goal rather than going for it on 4th down. Call it 9 points or call it 12, either way the Bills defensive effort looks even worse now than it did at the time. The Bucs have provided an object lesson in how the Chiefs offense can and should be stopped. 5) Throughout his career Patrick Mahomes has been completely set up for success. His offensive cast would dominate the other team's defense, his coaching staff would dominate the other team's coaching staff. He sat and learned as a rookie, and became the starter in his second year. In contrast, Josh Allen began his career under just about the worst circumstances possible. He had what might have been the worst OL in team history. His WR corps consisted of Kelvin Benjamin, Andre Holmes, and the rookie WR Zay Jones. He was thrown in as a rookie, in game 1, after the starter's reps in the offseason had all been given to Nate Peterman. Hard to meaningfully compare numbers when you've literally done everything possible to set one guy up for success and the other up for failure. This is the first game that I can remember in which Mahomes didn't have the benefit of his supporting cast dominating the other team's defense, and in which his coaching staff failed to dominate the opponent's defensive coaches. In that situation Mahomes looked very human. Very very beatable. Claims that Mahomes is better than Josh Allen are becoming increasingly less convincing, at least to me. Allen clearly outplayed Mahomes in the second half of the 2020 season. I'm not saying I know which one is better than the other, because I don't. It will be interesting to see how things shake out over the next few years.

I'm rooting for Tampa Bay to win the Super Bowl. Lots of reasons for that, most of which have to do with hating the Chiefs. But I have one additional reason. In the AFC Championship Game, the Chiefs had seven drives which didn't end in kneel downs. On those seven drives, they scored touchdowns on five of them, and a field goal on another. Only once that whole game did the Bills' defense achieve a victory, where a victory is defined as a turnover or forcing a punt. There are two ways you could look at this. 1) You could say that the Bills couldn't stop KC because no one can stop KC. The total dominance of KC's offense over the Bills' defense was unfortunate, but there was nothing more we could have done. OR, 2) There is much more the Bills' defense could have done. The KC offense is a solvable problem, and the Bills' defense could and should have solved it. Let's say that the Chiefs score 1/3 as many points per drive against the Bucs as they scored against us. That would be both proof that the Chiefs offense can be stopped, as well as a blueprint for how to stop it. I want both those things. I don't want the Bills to receive the validation of thinking that they were the second-best team in the NFL after the Chiefs. They don't deserve that. Their level of play in the postseason was significantly worse than it had been in the second half of the regular season. The Bills should be angry with themselves for having underachieved in all three postseason games, not celebrating themselves for having made it to the AFC Championship Game. Lots of problems for the Bills to fix: their offensive line, soft zone, etc. I want the Bills to be focused on fixing those problems, not on pretending everything is "okay."

Let's say a team signs a blocking TE and a pass catching TE. Same position, two different jobs. Because the job is different, you're looking for different attributes or skill sets from one than you are from the other. Sure, you'd love to have a guy who's great at both, but usually it's one or the other. By the same token, a QB in a Greg Roman offense is there to do a different job than a QB who's asked to be a traditional pocket passer. If you're going to be a QB in a Greg Roman offense above all you need to be fast. Take EJ Manuel for example. When the Bills drafted him he was known as a raw prospect with great physical tools. But those physical tools were not quite good enough for a Greg Roman offense. Roman benched Manuel (4.65 in the 40) in favor of Tyrod Taylor (4.47 in the 40). After Roman found his way to Baltimore, did the Ravens make a major effort to acquire Taylor? No, they didn't. Instead they drafted Lamar Jackson. Why pursue a QB who ran a 4.47 in the 40 when you can draft a QB who ran a 4.34? Greg Roman has routinely been accused of holding his QBs back. If that's true, you'd expect QBs to do better after leaving his system. After Roman's empire fell in San Francisco, Colin Kaepernick entered a two year QB competition against Blaine Gabbert. Both QBs provided roughly similar levels of play over the course of those two years. After that, Gabbert signed a vet minimum deal with some other team, while Kaepernick exited the league. After leaving Roman's system in Buffalo, Tyrod Taylor was significantly outplayed by two rookie QBs: Baker Mayfield in Cleveland and Justin Herbert with the Los Angeles Chargers. Both Kaepernick and Taylor looked like starting quality QBs while living under Roman rule, and backup quality QBs after Roman. The same people who thought that Greg Roman had been holding Kaepernick and Taylor back are now claiming he's holding back Lamar Jackson. The reality is Lamar is a billboard for Roman's offense. A billboard. Roman is an expert at using a QB's running ability to hide that QB's deficiencies as a passer. Roman's offense creates opportunities for easy completions--opportunities which don't exist for traditional pocket passing QBs, or even for running QBs in non-Roman offenses. If you were to put Jackson in a non-Roman offense--if you were to take those easy completions away from him--would he do better than Kaepernick or Taylor did in post-Roman offenses? Maybe. But that's speculative.

I personally have been disappointed in Cody Ford, and don't consider him a starting quality player. His run blocking is bad. Often loses his battle, thus spoiling the play. In defense of your post, you could point out that during the playoffs not only did the OL fail to run block well, but more often than not it also failed to provide good pass protection. A very disappointing performance by the line. Might Ford have gotten dominated less completely in pass protection than the offensive linemen we actually played? Yeah, that's possible.

Great post. A few thoughts: In the playoffs, the Bills defense got eaten alive by Rivers and Mahomes. They did a great job against the Ravens though. Perhaps that's because unlike those other two teams, the Ravens aren't designed to pick you apart with short, underneath passes? Whatever the reason might be, during the 2020 regular season the Bills defense allowed more pass completions to TEs than any other defense in the league. That is clear and compelling evidence the Bills defense was getting eaten by the underneath stuff. That's either a scheme problem or a player problem. Rivers and Mahomes very often got the ball out quickly. If the QB gets rid of the ball in a hurry, the defensive line obviously cannot be blamed for the outcome of the play. Nor is the defensive line the primary culprit for the insanely high (130+) passer rating QBs achieved when targeting Edmunds during the regular season. Were there times when Edmunds got picked on after the QB got away with holding onto the ball a long time? Absolutely. But, you don't surrender a near-perfect passer rating to opposing QBs unless you're giving them the underneath stuff pretty much all the time, even on plays when the QB gets the ball out quickly. Even if the Bills upgraded their DL to become one of the best in the league, that would not fix the defense's tendency to give up the underneath stuff. Edmunds' surrendering a near-perfect passer rating to opposing QBs is either an Edmunds problem or a scheme problem. Edmunds definitely has the physical tools to be good in coverage, but does he have the information processing ability to not get fooled? Does the scheme he's in give him the best opportunity to make plays and shut down opposing receiving targets? If this scheme is asking him to make too many decisions, and making it easier for him to be fooled by opposing offensive coordinators, would a different defensive scheme help him avoid getting fooled so that he could get maximum benefit from his great athletic ability? There's a reason why I focused more on the defensive scheme and on Edmunds in this post than I did on the defensive line. Is it accurate to say that the defensive line needs another pass rusher, and also needs a 1 tech DT? Yes. But piling all the blame for the defense at the doorstep of the defensive line would be cheap, easy, and at the end of the day wrong. The obviousness of the defensive line's problems shouldn't distract us from the fact that this defense has other, even more serious problems, starting with the defensive scheme.

Step 4: After you've established rapport with the woman, give her a look which lets her know the time has come to become physically intimate.

Adam Gase, recently fired by the New York Jets, is widely expected to return to coaching football in some capacity, with some other team. But, is coaching football truly the best possible use of this man's abilities? The dating coaching or seduction coaching industry is larger than you think, and could represent an enormous opportunity for a man such as Adam Gase. If he enters this industry, his students will probably learn something like the following. Step 1: Start by giving a woman a look which tells her you're a cool guy. Step 2: Show the woman you are relaxed, friendly, and approachable, with an expression such as this: Step 3: If the woman tells you of a painful past experience, show her empathy.

Well then, perhaps you'd like to provide some of that analysis?

Lots of bowl games in college football, and teams get psyched up for those. While some of those bowl games are also playoff games on the path to the national championship, the majority are not. Is there a way to get NFL players psyched up for a bowl game, even if they're not on the path to the Super Bowl?

That's a very reasonable distinction. In general, I sometimes don't give enough thought to how my posts might come across to others, which can result in situations where I'm trying to say one thing but people are hearing something different. In this case I labeled a paragraph a "solution" when I should have labeled it a "recommended action."

#1. A month or two ago a poster with 716 in his name wrote some top shelf posts about how the Bills' defense had been figured out. This guy was a highly expert poster, and really knew what he was talking about. I believed what he'd written. Then after he'd written those things the Bills' defensive coaching staff was totally dominated by the offensive coaching staffs of the Colts and Chiefs. If McDermott and Frazier are brutally honest with themselves about how badly the Bills' defensive coaching was dominated by those two teams in the playoffs, they'll have taken the first step towards fixing the problem. It's easy to get into certain habits, certain assumptions, patterns. Breaking those things is hard and takes a strong will. Admitting you got totally and completely out-coached (which the Bills clearly did in those two games) gives you the strength of will necessary to shatter those old habits and assumptions, so that new habits can be put in their place. #3. I'm not completely sold on Feliciano, at least not as a long-term answer as a starter. I'm not happy with his performance against the Chiefs! If you're right about Morse, the offensive line might be in need of a new starting center and new starters at each OG position. #5. I don't blame you for wanting something more solid than Wade's handful of preseason plays or the Williams performance against a demoralized Miami defense. But normally, to get "solid" you have to allocate a fairly early draft pick, or a significant amount of salary cap space. I personally would prefer to save those draft picks and salary cap space for other positions. If neither Wade nor Williams nor any of the other 3rd string or lower RBs pans out, you still have Singletary and Moss.

Let's say you were to make a list of players who were preseason stars before getting a chance to play in the regular season. Fred Jackson's name would be on that list. Stevie Johnson's name would be on it. As would Nate Peterman's. Fred Jackson and Stevie Johnson show that players who do well in the preseason can also do well in the regular season, while the Nate Peterman example shows that a guy who's great in preseason might not be so great during the regular season. Christian Wade did exceptionally well during the handful of plays they gave him during the preseason. Was that just a lucky fluke? Maybe. But I think that those plays, along with his rugby accomplishments, together indicate that you might want to take a closer look. Give him more snaps in the preseason and see what he does with them. If he proves to be a disappointment, then you wasted some preseason reps which could have gone to some other player instead. But, you'd also have proof that you were right about him and that I was wrong, and that's got to be worth something! If on the other hand he does something good with his opportunity, then you've just found your speed runningback, without having to use any draft picks or any significant amount of salary cap space.

#1: I think the better offensive coaches in the league have figured out how to attack the soft spots in the already soft zone. The defense's problems are not just a player issue. They are also a scheme issue, especially when facing offenses designed to pick you apart with underneath passes. #2: I'd have absolutely no objection to them signing a star FA pass rusher, assuming that 1) they have the cap space to make it work, and 2) that such a player is available in free agency. To get the needed cap space they'll have to be very disciplined about not overpaying anyone. #3: Do you feel the Bills should upgrade the center position? #5: Of the RBs who are 3rd or lower on the depth chart, Christian Wade is the one who's made the best impression on me thus far. But he was given very little playing time in his first preseason, and his second preseason was canceled due to Corona. What I'd like to see is a return of the preseason, as well as giving abundant preseason playing time to the 3rd or lower RBs on the roster. Let the play on the field decide which of those guys, if any, deserves more playing time in the regular season. #6 I hear what you're saying about TEs taking time to develop. With this team having made it to the AFC Championship Game, there's an argument for drafting a "now" player to give you that last little push. I'll grant that neither a pass rusher nor a TE is necessarily a now player. But, I'd argue that the Bills' window of opportunity is however long Josh Allen is able to maintain an elite level of play. For me personally, I'd like a player who can help us next year of course. But more importantly I want whichever player can do the most to help over the long term. The counterargument to that is that once Josh Allen signs his extension, a large portion of the salary cap will be consumed by his contract. That will decrease the team's ability to surround him with good talent. However, I'm not overly impressed with the talent he's been surrounded with now, except at WR and defensive secondary. Even with his share of the salary cap greatly increasing, I believe we can do a better job of surrounding him with talent in the future, for many years to come, than the job we did this year. If I'm right about that, it reinforces the point that the Bills have a long Super Bowl window.

Fixed. 🙃

The way I see it, the two biggest weaknesses of Edmunds' game are his information processing and his inability to get off blocks. Whereas, his best strengths are his physical tools and athleticism. If you put him in a situation where he isn't being asked to get off blocks, and where the other team's coaches aren't setting him up to mentally fail, odds are he'll have a good game. Sometimes a rock solid game. When either of those things cease to be true, odds are he'll have a bad game. Will he overcome these limitations or weaknesses in year 4 or year 5 of his career? Maybe, but unlikely. Are you okay living with a middle linebacker who has these limitations? That depends on what your goal is. A guy like that will do well in a lot of his regular season games, but will let you down when he faces a Frank Reich or an Andy Reid or some other opposing coach who set him up to mentally fail. Would these limitations be less relevant at OLB than they are at middle linebacker? That's possible, and I'd be willing to at least entertain the idea of having Edmunds and Milano swap positions. In a perfect world Milano gives you an upgrade at middle linebacker due to being better at information processing, and Edmunds gives you an upgrade at OLB over Milano due to having better physical tools. Not saying that this is how things would pan out, just that it's an option to consider. If Milano is too small for middle linebacker, could he bulk up? Jerry Hughes had 4.5 sacks during the 2019 regular season, and another 4.5 sacks during the 2020 regular season. He only missed one game during the course of those two years. Which is a better use of cap space: paying $9 million per season to an aging and relatively ineffective pass rusher, or paying a young, proven player like Milano $13 million per season? My vote is to use the money on Milano. You blamed Edmunds' poor pass defense statistics in part on a lack of a pass rush. Well, you're paying Jerry Hughes $9 million per year to be a pass rusher. When a guy who's supposed to be your best pass rusher comes up with 4.5 sacks per season, that's part of the problem!

McDermott and Beane went right up to the edge of the salary cap, with the expectation that it would go up. Instead Corona happened and the salary cap went down. The Bills are now in an unenviable place, salary cap wise. If it comes down to a choice between keeping a young, promising player, such as Milano, versus keeping an older player like Hughes, I really think you have to go with Milano. If Hughes is amenable to a pay cut, fine. Keep him. But they simply can't afford to pay him next season what he made this past season. They just can't. As for Edmunds: he's been in the league three years now. Three years of starting experience. If the light bulb hasn't come on for him yet it's unlikely to do so.

1) Defensive coaching. The defensive coaching staff did a good job overall against the Ravens. The same was not true of the playoff games against the Colts or the Chiefs. I understand that Frank Reich and Andy Reid are two of the best offensive minds in the game. But make no mistake: the Bills' defensive coaching staff was beaten like a rented mule in both those games. Reich's 4th down call is a good example of that. That would have been an easy touchdown, had the Colts players executed. They didn't, and turned the ball over on downs. Periodic execution failures by Colts players obscured just how badly the Bills' defensive coaching staff was dominated by Reich and his offensive coaches. The Chiefs didn't have that problem. Of the 7 Chiefs drives which didn't end in kneel downs, 5 resulted in touchdowns, and another went for a field goal. The total dominance of the Chiefs offense over the Bills' defense was alone sufficient to determine the outcome of the game. Defensive coaching might be this team's single greatest weakness. Solution: Above all, this idea of "soft zone" needs to die. The idea of "let them move the chains with the underneath stuff" needs to no longer be tolerated. In place of these things, I'd like to see more defensive gameplans like the one this coaching staff prepared against the Patriots a year or two ago. I'm thinking of the game where Brady and the Patriots offense were totally stymied. The Patriots won that game anyway due to a blocked punt and the total domination of the Patriots defense over the Bills offense. 2) Defensive line. McDermott and Beane have made a considerable investment in the defensive line, in terms of both salary cap space and draft picks. The defensive line was dominated by a (very good) Colts OL, as well as by the Chiefs OL. I get that both Rivers and Mahomes tend to get rid of the ball quickly. But during the course of the regular season the defensive line also failed to justify the very considerable resource investment made in it. Solution: draft a pass rusher. Also sign or draft a 1 tech DT. Any existing DL who isn't contributing to the level of his salary needs to either be cut outright, or else given a massive pay cut. None of Hughes, Addison, or Murphy should make next year what they made this year. The world will keep spinning even if we lose all three. 3) Edmunds. Edmunds had a good game against the Ravens, but did not play well against the Colts or the Chiefs. Great physical tools, but struggles with the mental side of the game. Also I recently read that opposing QBs have a 130 QB rating when targeting Edmunds. People are talking about letting Milano walk in order to have the cap space to re-sign Edmunds, or to allow an OLB position to open up for Edmunds. I don't understand the logic of letting go of a guy who's produced (Milano) in order to keep a guy who hasn't (Edmunds). Edmunds has had three years here for the light to go on. At this point we need to see him for what he produces, not for what his potential is or what his draft status was. Solution: re-sign Milano. Wait until next year to do anything about upgrading Edmunds, because the Bills don't have the picks or cap space to address the problem this year. 4) Offensive line. During the regular season it was normal for the offensive line to do a good job of pass protection, but a bad job of run blocking. On a running play all it takes is one OL to lose his individual battle, and then you have a defender who's not where he's supposed to be. That will often spoil the play. The OL seemingly took its level of play down a notch or two during the playoffs. The run blocking was bad as usual. But the pass protection was often bad as well, especially against the Colts and Chiefs. Solution: Upgrade at least one OG spot. Ideally both. The Bills should not be afraid to use a 2nd or 3rd round pick on an OG. You could easily justify using both those picks on OGs. (And pray that at least one of those picks works out better than Cody Ford!) 5) Running back. To a certain extent I think the Bills' RBs are getting blamed for the offensive line failures. That said, there's also some truth to the argument that the Bills don't have a speed guy at that position, and would benefit from one. However, the Bills do not have the draft picks or salary cap space to make a major investment here. Those picks need to be invested on the offensive and defensive lines. Solution: Christian Wade (rugby guy) has been on the roster two full years now. Surely he has learned the game of football and the Bills' offense. Unless some better option comes along, they should sign him to the regular season roster, and sprinkle him in on returns, trick plays, and occasional running plays. 6) Tight end. With Buffalo's five best WRs all injured for the Chiefs game, it would have been nice to have had a good TE to pick up some of the slack. While Knox has his moments he is not an upper tier TE. Solution: The Bills probably don't have the resources to address this problem this offseason, so they might need to wait a year to deal with this. Ideally Knox improves significantly during that year, and this problem goes away.