FireChans

Crossman was a hold over, but McD was well within his rights to not retain him. Like he did for a bunch of other coaches. There are a million guys who are available for OC jobs every year. The key is finding good ones. Dennison was never really an OC, he was a Mike Shanahan/Gary Kubiak lackey. They picked the wrong one, he sucked, and they fired him. As much as I think Josh wanted Dorsey, and as much as I don't like partcipating in the "it's either Josh's fault or McD's fault," game, the buck stops with the HC when it comes to picking staff. McD has to wear Crossman, Dorsey and Dennison. They are guys he hired or retained who sucked.

This is true, but how many teams are going in calling their 5th or 6th options "key contributors?" You yourself said that you think Hollins is going to have a bigger role than a normal WR4. I think that's a mistake. Under no circumstances should Hollins be considered anything more than a backup/ST guy. I don't care if he is a better blocker than Curtis Samuel or Khalil Shakir. IMO, Samuel and Shakir are both better than Hollins already. Hollins should take exactly 0% of their snaps outside of injury/rest or the odd run package. I think Coleman has more of an NFL future than Mack Hollins, and ideally should easily clear Hollins on snaps because we are going to hopefully be counting on Coleman's contributions for years in the future. So really, I don't think Hollins should have a real offensive role at all, outside of ST. In Atlanta, Hollins was seeing 60-70% of snaps last year through the first 4 games. That dropped to 20-30%, then a couple inactives, then back to 20%. Obviously, he was terrible from a statistical standpoint (even though he was their 2nd WR in targets and their 5th player overall in targets). He is just not a good player. He is Trent Sherfield 2.0, who also was a guy who did not deserve the 40% of snaps he was getting.

This is a difficult question to answer. Every camp has different levels of talent. Does the fact that Legette couldn't beat out Thielen or Diontae Johnson mean he couldn't beat out Mack Hollins? I don't think so. The big question is, "Is Mack Hollins role on the team a reflection on their opinion of their rookie WR?" I actually agree with you that it may not be. There's two trains of thought. #1 Coleman isn't ready to beat out a mediocre NFL vet today, but the Bills think he will eclipse him long-term. I get this, and IMO, have no problem with the strategy if the vision for Coleman is Davante Adams-lite. In this instance, Mack Hollins' role on the team is a necessary evil while Coleman gets up to speed and refines his game. #2 Independent of Coleman's performance, the Bills had/have a vision of Mack Hollins being a key contributor on the 2024 Bills at the WR position. This is an indefensible position that frankly, along with a previous poor series of WR management, would really call into question the acumen of any and all of their WR decisions, including the decision to trade back and take Coleman. We will never know how they truly feel. So you're right. Maybe Mack was in their plans all along. To me, that's even worse than Coleman not being able to leave him in the dust in camp.

Okay so let's pick week 8 for both. It was Shakir's highest targeted game. Week 8 - Week 18 for both 10 games - Shakir 3.1 catches per game, 53.6 YPG, 0.1 TDPG - prorated over 17 games 52.7 catches for 911 yards and 1.7 TD's 9 games (rested week 18) - Rice 5.8 catches per game, 70 YPG, 0.4 TDPG - prorated over 17 games 98.6 catches for 1190 yards and 6.8 TD's Yeah, I don't see it, jmo.

When was that? I want to compare that stretch with Rice.

huh? You said Hollins is gonna play more than a standard WR4. I'm assuming your WR's 1-3 are Samuel, Shakir and Coleman. If we are predominantly in 11 or 12 personnel like most NFL teams, any snap that Hollins sees is going to take away from one or two of the guys above them. If they aren't on the field, they can't get a target. Who do you expect to see more snaps this season. Hollins or Coleman? Personally, I could see Coleman getting a few more targets and Hollins playing more snaps over the course of the year. But what I think some would prefer is Coleman (and Shakir/Samuel) to keep a known quantity like Hollins on the bench, which is @Kirby Jackson's point.

Fair enough. I just feel like that's a little biased. If Coleman drops 79, 938 and 7 TD's in a larger role in 24 and Worthy has 39 catches 611 yards and 2 TD's, I don't think anyone on TBD is gonna say, "neither player has an edge" lol.

Rashee Rice had more catches, yards and TD’s as a rookie than Shakir has in his career. I don’t think it’s really comparable tbh. Shakir came on last season, but he’s gotta produce to show he’s as good or better than Rice.

I don’t know how you quantify markedly better but go position by position. QB - Chiefs RB - Push? Maybe Bills WR - Chiefs TE - Chiefs OL - Chiefs DL - Chiefs LB - Push with Milano out at best CB - McDuffie would be the best CB on the Bills but the Bills have better depth so push/slightly Bills S - not sure how anyone is confident either side is good K - Chiefs P - Push By my eye, we have some position groups that are close, but imo, the talent gap between both teams hasn’t been wider since 2020.

Jerry Hughes? He had a couple sacks in Indy prior to being moved but was playing opposite to Mathis and went from being a rotational guy to playing 20% of snaps. He was on his way out. The biggest kiss of death for a guy like Cine is that he was waived and PSed. That means he had zero market. Nobody wanted to give a conditional 7th for a reclamation project of a former first rounder, which is honestly bizarre. Isaiah WIlson, the former bust of the Titans, was terrible on and off the field. Played 4 snaps as a rookie. Skipped all kinds of things, got suspended multiple times, demanded a trade on Twitter etc. He was traded for a conditional 7th to the Dolphins. What is so wrong with Cine he can't even muster that?

I do not know a GM in the league that wouldn’t catch flak for extending a player 2 years early, and then trading that player before he played a snap on that extension. Crappy situation but when you double down on a volatile, mercurial WR as your only guy in the room, you can get burned.

I know a guy who might take this bet.

Who did the Chiefs hire outside of echo chambers? Spags? That was 5 years ago. Since then, they kept EB as their OC and when he left, they brought back Matt Nagy who started there. The Niners have again promoted internally on the defensive side since 2017. They didn’t last year and they fired the dude immediately and replaced him with a guy internally. The Eagles built an entire new staff in 2021 because they fired everyone. When Steichen and Gannon got poached, they promoted internally at OC. They hired an outside DC and basically fired him midseason. The Ravens promoted Roman to OC internally. He spent 17-18 as an offensive assistant until he got the OC job. Wink Martindale was the LB coach there for 5 years before he got the DC job which he held for years. After they fired him, they went external. McDonald got poached and they replaced him with their inside LB coach, again, promoting internally. So yeah, most good teams mostly promote internally, just like the Bills.

Like I said, firing a coordinator every two years is pretty stark. other teams in our weight class aren’t really turning over coordinators at that rate, and the ones that do we have a pretty poor outlook on their future (Eagles/Cowboys). im probably considered more of a McD guy than most, but that’s a lot of hiring and firings.

I am really torn on this. i think there’s an argument to take a Keon type WR who you expect to develop over a year or two. The comp is Davante Adams who doesn’t blossom right away. I don’t see it with Keon but if Beane and co do, then there’s some logic behind it not being a big deal. The other issue is that Mack Hollins is high on the depth chart at all, but that’s not necessarily reflective on Keon’s value.

Yeah kinda. you are forgetting that he hired Dennison, Crossman and Dorsey.

Firing a coordinator every other season is pretty stark lol.

Do they? Shanny lost Saleh and promoted Demeco internally. Lost Demeco and hired Wilks externally. Fired Wilks and hired Sorensen internally. His offensive coaching tree is littered with internal promotions. The Pats were very similar. BOB worked his way up to OC when Josh McDaniels left. When McDaniels got fired, he came back immediately. Teams with high staff turnover (read: bad teams) do a lot of external hires. Teams that are not bad don’t really seem to do the same.

Inside the top 50 is a very funny way to describe the 49th best safety in football. That’s, by definition, below average. Putting aside that judging safeties on sacks is on its face pretty bizarre, tied for ninth on the Bills for sacks was 1.5. Aka a half sack less than Boogie Basham. Let’s talk the counting stats that aren’t addressed here: 2022 passes defensed. Hamlin had 2. Tied with Von Miller and Boogie Basham. Less than Elam and Siran Neal. Let’s talk advanced stats. Hamlin was targeted in coverage 35 times on the year. Resulting in 25 completions (71%) 454 (!) yards, a 142 passer rating, and 3 TD’s. It’s cool he had some success on safety blitzes. He blitzed 16 times on the year. He was terrible in coverage and terrible in run defense.

No. Diggs himself said that his thoughts about leaving the team started prior to the season. Anything short of a SB win and he was out. Heck, he didn’t want to win games in Brady’s offense in a lesser role, he may have wanted out regardless.

That's certainly a plausible explanation. I don't know how much Brady would have been a driving force of such a change compared to McD.

I think Diggs was still the highest targeted WR by a lot after Brady took over. IMO, cutting down Diggs and Davis targets some and giving them more to Shakir/Kincaid preceded Brady. Kincaid started seeing ~6-8 targets per game after NE1 and stayed basically around there for the rest of the year. Shakir went from 30% of offensive snaps and 1 target per game to 60%+ snaps and 4-6 targets per game around NE1/TB and again, continued from there. Even Josh running preceded Brady a bit. He had 22 rushes in the first 6 games, a little under 4 per game. He had 7 for both NE1 and TB and finished the back half of the year averaging a little over 8 rushes a game. I used to think Brady cut down on Diggs/Davis and took the shackles off Josh right around Denver as well, but just looking at the numbers, he kinda just finished the adjustments that Dorsey had started to make. This actually makes me feel better about Brady.

What was TO’s problem? Or Antonio Brown’s? I don’t know if the diva/personality disorder trend in WR’s is overblown or not, but there’s no doubt that the position has its fair share of malcontents in NFL history. And unwarranted malcontents at that. Diggs appears to be continuing that trend and imo that’s why no team will really claim him as theirs if he does make the HOF.

Hamlin played much more the Johnson and was a key reason the Bills run defense was terrible in 2022. He was constantly taking bad angles or whiffing. I don’t want to harp on the kid too much because of everything he has gone through but he did not put a lot of good tape out there. Splitting hairs if he was mediocre or bad also does not interest me. I don’t think he’s a starting S at the NFL level. He’s exactly what he has been, a backup late round pick.

1. I don't think Brandon Beane is finding lots of high-quality starters in rounds 4 or later. 2. BB does do a good job of finding role players and guys who belong on NFL rosters in the later rounds. He is probably above league average in this regard. 3. The problem with finding role players and guys who belong on NFL rosters in the NFL being your greatest skill, is that you have a roster that is filled with role players and not difference makers. IRT players on the active roster drafted 4th or later (not counting UDFA) the Bills have 13 and KC has 13. The Niners have 20. The Bills have Taron Johnson and Shakir (potentially) as impact players. The Chiefs have Trey Smith and Isaiah Pacheco. The Niners have Hufunga, Dre Greenlaw, George Kittle, Brock Purdy. If you are gonna make a living on late round guys, some of them have to hit pretty big.