Billl

I believe the narrative is that 13 seconds spoiled a perfect offensive performance. The fact that they punted on 44% of their possessions puts the lie to that narrative. I also believe you’re smart enough to have known that but lack the ability not to respond with some non-sequitur while simultaneously insulting the poster who had the audacity to make a truthful statement that hurt your feelings.

10-7, but the only thing that matters at this point is their record in the postseason.

The Bills still punted 4 times in 9 possessions that game compared to 2 punts in 11 possessions for the Chiefs. 13 seconds was a debacle, but if the Bills had scored on any of those 4 possessions, 13 seconds never happens.

3 straight playoff wins? When did that happen?

Right? They’re basically the same player except for the officiating.

Care to show your work on that one?

I don't think any of the last 4 you listed are starters.

The guy who ran for 161 yards against the Bills before he had an injury that derailed his career?

I love that you're trying to use the fact that Veach has drafted well enough to replace starters who took contracts with other teams as a negative. Never mind that every player he drafted that year is still in the league despite only having 808 total draft value points to with with. For comparison, Beane had 2,260. Beane just inked Ed Oliver and Dawson Knox to 4 year extensions for a combined $120,000,000 with $76,000,000 guaranteed. Is that really better than letting them walk and drafting their replacements like Kansas City did? I mean, Knox and Oliver are decent players just as Hardman and Thornhill are, but are they really so hard to replace in the draft that they're worth $30mm a year?

Gabe is a better player than Hardman, sure. Davis is probably one of the five best players Beane has ever drafted whereas Hardman may not make Veach’s top 20. Not sure how it’s relevant to compare picks from different seasons given that your question that prompted this discussion was a comparison of the Bills 2019 draft versus the Chiefs 2019 draft, though. It’s true that Thornhill is no longer a Chief. You initially mentioned Rashad Fenton who is also no longer a Chief, so one of us is a little confused. Either way, it’s certainly not the ultimate topic of discussion. Thornhill was a solid 4 year starter on a team that hosted the AFCCG each of those years and won 2 championships. When it was time for him to get a big contract, Veach had already drafted his replacement a year prior. Continuously replacing existing players with younger and cheaper players in the draft is the topic of the discussion. That’s why Kansas City has no defensive players over the age of 30 and only a few on offense. Young, elite, and cheap. You’d better be at least 2 of the 3, or you get replaced with someone who is.

Weren’t they missing 3 starting lineman in the playoffs?

That’s actually an interesting point. Brett Veach’s “misses” that year are Mecole Hardman who was taken at pick 56 and has 18 TDs and 2200 yards in two seasons and Juan Thornhill taken at pick 63 who has 52 starts in 4 seasons (he missed 8 games his second season from an injury and was never the same) and just signed a 3 year, $21mm contract. Veach had 3 picks in the top 200 that year. His entire draft amounted to roughly 750 points according to the draft value charts. For the sake of comparison, Ed Oliver was taken at pick 9 (1350 points), and Cody Ford was taken at pick 38 (520 points). Two of the three players taken by Veach after pick 200 are still on active rosters, and the third just got cut. So to answer your first question, no. Mecole Hardman at pick 56 wasn’t a bust in any sense of the word. Cody Ford at 38 was a bust whereas Hardman was a decent but unremarkable player given his draft position. Thornhill, much like Dawson Knox, is a pretty good player who filled a need on the cheap. Beane decided to give Knox a $52mm contract with $31mm guaranteed, while Veach drafted Thornhill’s replacement with a late second rounder in last year’s draft. But, yeah. DJ Metcalf and McLaurin would have been much, much better picks than Hardman. Drafting either of them would have probably been the difference between losing the AFCCG in OT in 2021 and winning the Super Bowl.

Did his leg grow back?

Oh I don’t know. Maybe that Buffalo’s first pick was 9th and Kansas City’s was 56th. May also be worth noting that they also picked Juan Thornhill and Mecole Hardman in that draft.

Beane wanted to wait until he was officially over the age of 30.

Drafting for need is absolutely important. I never said otherwise. The issue is understanding what your needs actually are. You seem to think that something isn't a need until it's an emergency, and I disagree. Every team always needs to get younger, cheaper, and more talented. In 2021, Morse was reasonably talented but he was neither young nor cheap. That constitutes enough of a need that drafting Humphrey would have been a viable option. If you address your needs wisely, you tend to avoid emergencies. Drafting Creed to replace Morse would have freed up $10 million a year in salary cap space which could have been allocated to LB. Instead, Beane is caught in a cycle of constantly trying to plug holes that never would have existed if he'd simply drafted the talented players when they were originally available.

I'm saying they used the same strategy two years in a row and got the same result. When you only use top picks on positions of immediate needs, you limit the pool of players available and tip your hand as to who you're going to choose. Yes, Morse was a capable player, but he wasn't a star, he made a lot of money, and his age and injury history weren't ideal. You don't pass up an opportunity to a great player simply because a guy like Morse was on the team. That's what Beane did, and he ended up taking a lesser player at a position of immediate need.

Yeah, I don’t pay attention to the Bills, and I know nothing about Mitch Morse. BTW, where did he play before Buffalo and where did he play in college? Morse is an average C who makes $11.5mm per season and has a history of concussions. He could easily have been replaced by a late second rounder who is younger, cheaper, and better. Beane could have saved $10mm a year, had a better player, and used the savings to pay Edmunds. It doesn’t matter that there wasn’t a gaping hole at Center. Waiting until you have gaping holes to address positions in the draft leads to situations like last year where everyone knew the Bills were going CB, so they got jumped and had to then trade up for Elam. One bad pick has turned into two bad picks. Now Basham is gone, Elam is at the bottom of the depth chart, and the team has no legitimate plan at MLB because they couldn’t afford to pay the 25 year old pro-bowl level they drafted. The other issues you mentioned are all true, but that doesn’t mean picking Basham over Humphrey wasn’t a huge miss.

Does that really matter, though? When you’ve got the opportunity to replace a solid, but not great, aging veteran who has a big contract with a late second round pick, you take that every time. That’s how you build a championship roster around a franchise QB. There are a million different ways to win championships when you’ve got a superstar under center. A good GM should always be looking for ways to get younger and cheaper without having a major drop off in performance. Morse was a perfect candidate, and Creed was sitting right there.

Where is the logic in this, though? Let’s say he’s the greatest GM in history at determining which elite QB prospect will reach his potential in the NFL. He will literally never need to utilize that skill set again as the GM of the Bills. He had an amazing draft in 2018. Since then, he’s managed 4 postseason wins in 5 seasons with an elite QB. At what point does he get judged on his recent history?

They didn’t fail because they went after positions of need. The failure was picking bad players. They needed interior line help in 2021, and they had already taken Rousseau in the first round when they took Basham. Taking Creed would have been drafting for need, but they passed on him for another DE. The aggressive rebuild I’m referring to is going to be them moving pieces to build assets for the future. That’s when they’ll need to focus on BPA. 2024 is likely to be a reset season.

That’s not really true, though. This team has been right on the cusp for 3 seasons. When you’re that close to winning your first championship, everything you do is for need. Once you’ve got one, you get to start planning for the long term. McBeane doesn’t have the luxury of that. They are all in right now. I think you’re going to see an aggressive rebuild next offseason. If they’d have won it in 2021 or 2022, they’d have done it this offseason.

Well that’s good because Myles Boykin gave him a push at the LOS on the first snap of the second half last week that send him flying onto his butt. I didn’t realize that the new defensive scheme McDermott utilizes doesn’t require CBs to tackle. Elam clearly did, though. Hopefully they got that grass stain off the seat of his white pants.

That notebook might hold up better against blockers than Elam does.

There were times last season where he looked like he had a lot of potential. The only action I’ve seen this preseason was against the Steelers, and he legitimately looked as bad as any CB I’ve ever seen. He’s one of the strangest cases I’ve ever seen.