FireChans

There are two arguments. #1 McD/Beane want ball-control type offense with less TO's and less drives per game and this offense as it looks is intentional. #2 McD/Beane cobbled together a group for 2024 to get by with eyes on 2025. I don't have as much of a problem with this as trading Diggs away with his huge cap hit puts a huge black mark on the season already, with the large corollary that I would have liked more rookies or youngish talent in the WR room if they are viewing this as a stepping stone year. There is a case for #2 imo. I am down on Beane prioritizing WR because it felt increasingly obvious over the last 3 seasons to do so, but he did have that stretch across 19 and 20 where he built the room to be quite good over the course of two seasons.

It’s a compounding problem. Dorsey’s numbers and offense would’ve probably looked even better if he had 2020 offensive talent at his disposable. It may have been even better than Daboll’s 2020. But when you let receiving talent erode, then run an offense that relies predominantly on “beat your man” philosophies, you get what we got. We always mention that improving the weapons make Josh’s life easier. It also makes the OC’s life easier. Even great OC’s like Shanny can struggle when they don’t have Deebo or Trent Williams.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/nfl-guardian-caps-everything-you-need-to-know-about-football-s-new-protective-helmet/ar-AA1otexf Are Guardian Caps Mandatory? Yes and no. The NFL introduced Guardian Caps during 2022 training camps. In 2023, the league required positions that receive the most head contact — running backs, linemen, and linebackers — to wear the extra padding in camp. In 2024, every position, excluding quarterbacks and specialists, was mandated to use a Guardian Cap in training camp. NFL players who wore one of six new helmet models approved by the league and the NFLPA were exempt from using Guardian Caps.

I think the floor for a Josh Allen offense with a couple of good to great targets is about top 5 tbh. Lots of folks argued Daboll sucked/wasn't doing a good job and they were 3rd in points in 2021 and 2nd in points in 2020. The results speak for themselves, eh?

Oh I know lmao. In your defense, his EPA/Starbucks order in Cleveland is looking elite by all accounts this off-season.

Okay, so you think he did a good coaching job. Agree to disagree. @BADOLBILZ probably won’t agree he did a good job but will also nitpick a take he doesn’t even disagree with.

Got it. When you said neither Aiyuk or Deebo are in their plans two years from now, I thought you were trying to say they can’t keep either of them longer term. Philly interesting because Jalen Hurts’ deal is truly cap voodoo and I have no idea how it’s gonna play out lol. He had a void year with a $97M cap hit in 2029. I don’t even know where to start with interpreting it.

Let's just be frank. Do you think the Bills offense was well-coached in Dorsey's tenure? I had multiple views of receivers running into the same spots on their routes during the Dorsey era. Is that Dorsey or the players or the WR coach? In Dorsey's full year, the Bills had the second most TO's in football. Their worst ranking in Josh Allen's career. Is that Dorsey or the players or the position coaches? We can say it wasn't all Dorsey's fault because of the talent erosion, because McD made big mistakes too, because Josh got hurt. But the crux of the matter is, "was Dorsey doing a good job?" The answer, imo, is no, and with that this conversation can end lmao.

I thought it was turning it over 4 times vs the Broncos. Anyone got the numbers on if turnovers are bad when it comes to winning football games?

I agree with that. If they wanted to pay him, he'd be paid lmao. Like I said earlier, I think it may be true that they value Deebo more in their system. I think choosing Deebo over Aiyuk at this stage of the game is the wrong move, and if I made the call, I would choose Aiyuk over Deebo. Mostly because I think there's a strong possibility Deebo falls off a cliff and they end with the Brocketship inked on a huge deal, neither Aiyuk or Deebo on the roster and he proves himself to be the Tua-West that he clearly is and it cooks them for a couple seasons. IMO, the long-term play is to keep a great receiving talent around Brock Purdy as long as possible, and Aiyuk has a far better chance at being that.

The player who most notably saw very little PT and when he did he looked HORRIBLE was Dorian Williams last year. Before him was Bernard the year prior, who also looked horrible in spot duty. Bernard clearly benefited imo from waiting his turn and getting his sea legs under him. What player deserved more PT or to be more heralded during this regime? If the Bills believe that 2024 is a lost cause for an SB, I'd want a rookie/young guy playing at every position. But they don't believe that. The guy who they think will perform the best will play, and they are usually correct.

That's not the point. They would be signing him to a contract now. The argument that "they can't pay one of Deebo/Aiyuk a big contract now because Brock Purdy will eventually have a big cap hit" doesn't hold water. It's criminal for a Bills fan who watched the Bills sign Josh to a gigantic contract in 2021, and watched them pay Diggs big money and extend him to even bigger money during Josh's gigantic contract to believe. That's the point.

@DrDawkinstein More to the point: Jared Goff is the fifth highest paid QB in football right now. He has a $32M hit in 24. St. Brown, with his gigantic extension, has a cap hit of just $4M this season and only $13.9M net season. There is no Sophie's choice between paying a QB or paying a WR until well into a QB's extension. A Brock Purdy extension wouldn't even start until 2025 at the EARLIEST. If they keep his cap hit lower by amortizing his money into signing bonuses, they can easily give themselves 2-3 years of relatively low cap hits. So now, we are talking about 2027 at the EARLIEST that they start to take his cap medicine. They can easily pay Aiyuk through that point, and again, they can even keep his cap hit low for the first few years of his extension as well. Aiyuk couldn't be in their plans past 25? Bah.

What? I completely disagree with this entire take. They can easily pay Aiyuk 2 years from now while Brock’s contract is ramping up. Especially with a Deebo contract coming off the books along with Trent Williams likely retired by that point. The Bills were able to pay Diggs a really high salary for the first 3 seasons of Josh’s extension. Philly is paying Brown and Smith with Jalen Hurts locked up. When you are not a poverty franchise (read: the Bengals) it’s very easy to keep a big QB contract’s cap number low for the first couple years. The Bills just did this. The Eagles are doing this. The Bengals can’t/won’t because they are poor, which is why Burrow’s contract in its second year has a $13M BIGGER hit than Josh’s second year. This is a total meme take about not being able to pay a single WR because of QB contracts. Did we start paying Josh yesterday or did we give him gigantic money over 3 years ago?

Probably because we were stumbling with Dorsey’s offense and Josh had to do SOMETHING and that something involved Josh lowering his shoulder. If under Dorsey, we called less QB runs but Josh had to run more because the play was broken/didn’t work, it’s really 6 and 1/2 dozen. Either way, Josh ran too much with him throwing clipboard in the booth. Sayonara to the EPA king.

Dorsey gets coffee in Cleveland, he doesn’t do anything a normal OC does. He’s Curt Modkins.

I legitimately do not understand bringing in the resume of Mike freaking Mularkey into this discussion lmao. Because he was a “coach of the year candidate” (isn’t every coach who doesn’t get fired before the end of the season a COTY candidate?) Brian Daboll isn’t a perfect coach. I won’t even go as far as to say he’s a very good HC. I will say that he made the playoffs and won a playoff game with a crappy QB DJ looking competent in his first HC season, because he did. I will say he won COTY, because he did. I will say he’s already the best Giants coach since Coughlin, because he is. You are welcome to ignore that or say it doesn’t matter or whatever. But it is what he has done as an HC. The Giants were approaching Bills drought level sadness after Eli’s wheels fell off. They were a who’s who of complete coaching incompetence. I feel very comfortable saying Daboll clears them all easy. Go ahead and tell me why Joe Judge is better lmao.

Nah. When Deebo was negotiating, Aiyuk hadn’t stepped up, and the end was near in regards to Jimmy G’s contract. Besides, a 3 year extension with $9M in savings if you cut the guy after year 2 is not really prohibitive at all. Jeudy has a cap hit of $4M this season with an extension. Aiyuk’s will be a little higher probably but not much. The cap hit this year is not the problem. They are choosing between losing Aiyuk for picks this year or keeping Aiyuk and being forced to move on from Deebo next year.

It’s the correct take. I have seen the argument that Deebo is more important to their offense than Aiyuk. Which may be true. The question is who will be more valuable to their offense two years from now. And the answer is clearly Aiyuk. This is a mistake by the Niners who will end up with an injured old Deebo and an offense with limited talent otherwise around a $40+M Brock Purdy.

Obviously. The connotation of drafting for need is drafting for IMMEDIATE need. Like drafting a CB in the first round because you need a starting CB RIGHT NOW. Drafting for 2-3 years down the road is generally considered not drafting for “need.” I know you know this. There’s no reason to try to muddy the waters semantically. Like I said, we don’t know what the Bills board was. What we do know is that we needed a DE going into the draft and we drafted a DE with our first pick of said draft, and he was a disappointment. It is certainly possible he was the best player left on their board when they picked. It’s also possible he wasn’t. Without intimate knowledge of the Bills board, we will never know for sure. Again, the connotation of BPA is taking the best player available when you pick. I believe Beane when he says he was their last first round grade (but I do acknowledge he could be lying), but I think it’s a safe assumption they traded up for him out of need. I have never seen a BPA-type strategy described as “trade up for the best player you have left on your board.” That’s just not how the strategy is described in these conversations. This is a strategy that I believe most teams follow for QB’s and for good reason, you can’t wait to get a guy when you don’t have a QB. Ultimately, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a lot of Beane’s early rounds picks have strongly correlated with needs and a lot of his best picks have been in the later rounds and those rounds haven’t really correlated with needs at all. We have had so many 3rd round and later picks pan out at the NFL level. Part of that is obviously luck so it’s hard to make any definitive opinion, but I’m kinda leaning to a “Beane favors needs much more in rounds 1-2 than he does in later rounds,” take.

I don’t know how you can be very confident that these players were all BPA on the Bills board? There are obvious examples where you have to rule out silly needs like kicker or QB as the Bills. I just don’t know that I buy the Bills have gotten lucky that their BPA and their biggest off-season need have coincided with their high picks almost every draft. The corollary of BPA is the big A, which stands for available. I don’t think that a pick like Elam really counts. We made a targeted trade up, imo, because of need. And unfortunately, that proved to be a mistake.

it is Mahomes, which is why “we need Simmons to stop Mahomes” is a bad argument lol. Hyde and Poyer were nobodies. Hyde was a slot DB and Poyer was a 7th round pick FA. They both were signed quite cheaply at the time. You can add Dane Jackson and Benford to the list of unheralded players playing far over their skis under McD. Elam probably just sucks. It’s even more evidence to stop giving McD high round picks. Our best defensive players for the last 7 years are basically all non-first or second rounders except for Oliver and White when he was healthy. Douglas is gonna be gone next year. They won’t pay him. Mahomes has lost to the Broncos once since being drafted.

This is the ultimate post unintentionally demonstrating why drafting for need is a really bad strategy. CONSTANTLY playing catch up. We need more pass rush, we have to take AJE and Basham. We have to take more OL, get Cody Ford. We have to take a CB, get Elam.

Huh? why would you expect a 31 year old Simmons in 2024 to be faster than a 29 and 30 year old Hyde and Poyer? I already said that I think Simmons would be a plus add in 2024. I don’t think he would be the difference maker between getting carved up by Mahomes or not, because he’s going to be 31, still a free agent, and we’ve already been carved up with 2 younger All Pros at his position multiple times. We also did get younger and cheaper at CB. We have two rookie contracts in our top 4 and the only “old” dude is Douglas who is the 28th highest paid CB this season. Ultimately, the benefit of having a defensive coach like McD is that he shouldn’t require a ton of high level investments to make his defense perform at a high level. Some key positions, sure. But the reason I loved him as a coach was finding guys like Poyer and Hyde and basically completely changing their careers. Drafting Tre White as like the 5th CB off the board and turning him into an All-Pro. Getting NFL level contributions out of dudes like Levi Wallace. If we need to invest big time dollars and big time draft picks into McD’s defense to make it work, then what is he even good at?

I'm not calling Daboll great. I'm saying that if Brady is great with Josh and gets hired away, I wouldn't punish McD by firing him. I don't think McD gets ANOTHER OC to throw under the bus. That was the point. Anyway, you're hilariously wrong about Daboll. He won a playoff game for the Giants for the first time since 2011. It was also their first playoff appearance since 2016. He also won coach of the year by having DJ look competent for 17 games. He's a shitshow, huh? lmao. Pay attention to the GMen since Eli won a Superbowl. Talk about shitshows.