Billl

Yes. I mean exactly that. 2 years of drafts and you’re highlighting a Kicker, a WR with 19 catches this season, and two guys who look good. These are all nice pieces, but the only player on the list who has even played half the snaps on either side of the ball is Rousseau at 51%. I like Groot and Brown a lot, but you can’t keep getting nothing out of high picks like Ford, Epenesa and Basham. You don’t need stars with every day 2 pick, but if you aren’t getting serviceable starters or at the very least heavy rotational pieces then you wind up with serious roster issues. You’re seeing signs of it now, and I think next year is going to be eye opening if some of these guys don’t start figuring it out quickly.

You’re really conflating other teams’ investments with Beane’s investments. Allen cost (essentially) the 21st pick, Corey Glenn, and 2 second round picks. Diggs cost a 1st, 4th, 5th, and 6th round pick plus his contract. That first was used for Justin Jefferson IIRC. If you call Diggs a 5th round investment, then you should call Trubisky the second overall pick.

I think you’re missing the elephant in the room. The team is getting next to nothing out of the past 2 draft classes. If some of these guys don’t start performing then next year could get really ugly. Beane did a great job drafting Allen, trading for Diggs, and signing a few team friendly extensions. He’s really struggled finding value in the draft since the Allen pick, though.

In your opinion, did McDaniels call better plays than Daboll, or did the Patriots simply execute better?

Oliver is interesting. If he had been taken in the 4th round, I think he would be viewed as slightly better than JAG. I’m really curious to see what he ends up signing for. I wonder if Beane will have the stones to let him walk if he demands top of the market. He took Edmunds and Oliver in the top half of the first in consecutive years, and not giving either of them a second contract would be a tough pill to swallow.

It’s probably too early to say for sure if that’s the case, but so far he hasn’t had any issues for a few years. He was looked at as a late first to mid second round prospect otherwise. Honestly, I think every team just took him off their draft boards, Kansas City included. By the time the end of the sixth round came, I think the Chiefs somehow noticed that he hadn’t been taken by anyone. It makes sense that everyone just assumed that SOMEONE would take him in maybe the third or fourth, so that’s the only explanation I can think of for how a top 3 Guard was still sitting there to be taken at 226. Honestly, there are a lot of GMs who should be getting dragged for letting him fall that far. You just can’t let a guy with that much ability fall that far. Hell, Buffalo had 3 6th round picks and took 2 guys who can barely get on the field for special teams snaps and one who was cut over a guy who was so good that he pretty much took over the starting job day 1 of training camp. I know the near unanimous reaction on the Chiefs board when he was picked was disbelief that he was still available.

What do you think Edmunds and Oliver will get in their next deals?

Buffalo was the pick before Kansas City, so they could have trumped any pick/trade the Chiefs made. It’s interesting to compare what that would have looked like. 1st round pick was traded to the Ravens for LT Orlando Brown Jr. He’s 24 and a 2x Pro Bowler who is a mauler in the running game. IMO he’d be a perfect fit in Buffalo. Kansas City also got a second round pick in return and gave up a 3rd round pick. 2nd round pick from Baltimore was used on MLB Nick Bolton who was a day 1 starter. He’s been great against the run but needs work against the pass. 2nd round pick C Creed Humphrey has been arguably the best Center in the league since day 1 and has played every snap. 6th round pick RG Trey Smith was a day 1 starter and has been excellent. (4th round pick was a developmental DE who hasn’t done much. 5th round was a TE who has played limited but increasing snaps. Other 5th round pick was a WR is on the practice squad.) Basically Beane could have rebuilt the O-line and added a LB who would have allowed them to play a base 4-3 while moving Edmunds to the WLB that he’s more suited for IMO. Obviously it’s way too early to make a final judgement, but it is interesting to see how two teams in very similar situations went about spending their draft assets.

Who on this roster will still be on the team in 2023? There are a LOT of tough decisions to be made with guys due for second and third contracts.

How so? His guy made a FG. McDermott’s didn’t.

The more times I watch this, the more chaos I notice. It’s like every defensive player intentionally ran the wrong way without any regard for where the guy with the ball was. Epenesa, Edmunds, Milano, and Hyde all just sorta ran in random directions. Dodson is the only one who did his job. He took on the FB and forced Harris into what should have been a clean gap for Edmunds. Then all hell broke loose.

It’s about more than that, though. This should have been the easiest game of his career from an assignment perspective. He didn’t have to worry about coverage. He didn’t have to worry about misdirection plays or getting wiped out by pulling linemen. He had one responsibility. Fill your gap. FWIW, I don’t think he was terrible, but he was far from perfect on a day where a more cerebral player could have been perfect. This wasn’t Rodgers up there calling audibles. It wasn’t Mahomes throwing no look passes or Brady making instant reads with pinpoint accuracy. Hell, it wasn’t even the Colts with an elite line and RB. It was Mac Jones handing the ball to his backs over and over and over. It was an ugly rock fight which is what any good MLB should want. Kuechly may have made 20 tackles in a game like that, but BB would never use that game plan against someone like him.

If you want to convince yourself that the officials cheated you out of the game, that’s your right. No objective observer is going to agree, though. Vinovich and his crew are the best in the NFL. They called a good game, but if either team got the benefit more than the other, it was the Bills.

I think he’s a Will in a 4-3. Let him start on one side of the field so that he can see the whole play in front of him and chase dudes down. Don’t force him to make quick decisions when it’s clear he doesn’t have great instincts. You don’t need a great athlete at MLB. You need someone who can recognize a play and has a good first step.

It’s an excellent question that leads into another. If you’re going to only play 2 LBers in your base defense, can you afford to have one of them blow assignments regularly in hopes that his splash plays make up for it? To me, that’s an obvious no. If you’ve only got one LB in the correct position, smart teams will eat you alive. In the AFCCG, Mahomes ate him alive. If Edmunds was out of position, he’d hit Kelce. When he was in position, Pat just moved him with his eyes…and then hit Kelce anyway. There’s a reason he has so many defenders. He’s a talented guy, but he’s a really bad fit for this scheme.

Exactly. The Patriots player was in better position for the ball and he was looking back at it. Knox was trying to fight through him, but both players have a right to go for the ball. The defender doesn’t have to get out of his way as long as his his head is turned.

None have been dominant all year, but if the season is a horse race you can see a few teams who got off to a slow start that have begun to make their charge. We’ll see what happens when teams go to the whip in the final quarter of the season, but it sure looks like there will be some familiar faces looking to pull away at the end.

To expand on this, where are the impact players on rookie contracts? This team has an old roster from a contract standpoint, and I don’t see a true difference maker on the roster that Beane drafted other than Allen (and Beane will never get to make another top 10 pick). Oliver, Edmunds, White (not Beane’s pick), etc. are going to start getting really expensive, and I don’t anticipate getting much from them next year. They’re on the books for something like $36,000,000 in 2022. Beane has got to start getting production out of the draft or he’s going to find himself with one hell of an ugly roster. He’s basically got next year to figure it out because in 2023 Josh’s cap hit will be quadruple what it is today. IMO, he needs to use next season going all in with guys like Epenesa, Basham, Groot, etc. just to see what he’s got. If it turns out there isn’t much there, he’s looking at a tear down. You can’t just sit around for 3 years hoping young players figure it out just in time to get a big second contract.

Yep. Bill has built a team that can win in a variety of ways. They aren’t great at any one thing, but they can adapt to take advantage of just about any weakness a team has.

Like calling a deep shot to Diggs only to have it bounce off his forearm? Like calling pass plays to get Knox open only to have him crap all over himself? Daboll’s play calls, bland as they may have been, were infinitely more creative than McDaniels’s.

Josh running in the red zone, sure. The rest I just can’t disagree with strongly enough. You don’t run gadget plays in a tornado, and no NFL game has ever been lost because Matt freaking Breida didn’t get enough touches. All Buffalo had to do was not beat themselves. New England made 2 big mistakes. Buffalo made more. BB was perfectly content to turn the game into a rock fight and dare Buffalo to execute.

This is the most tired narrative in sports. Play calling barely matters. If there was ever a game that proved it, it was this one. McDaniels ran the same 4 plays over and over and over. The Bills didn’t lose because they called better plays. They lost because they didn’t execute. Diggs lost track of a sure TD. Knox dropped balls like it was a paying job. The defense got gashed one a play that went 70 yards. Bass missed a short FG. Brieda somehow tried to take a handoff without using his hands. Play calling doesn’t change that. Last night was about discipline and mental toughness, not creativity.

Completely agree. It’s obvious what they saw in him, but there is zero reason to keep waiting for him to “get it” at this point. There are LBers every year that are being drafted in the first two days that have shown themselves to be much more capable than Edmunds. Kansas City took Willie Gay last year at the bottom of the second round. He was every bit as raw coming out as Edmunds was, and he looked every bit as lost in his rookie season. The light came on this year, and he’s a monster. Tre has now started 56 games. That’s longer than the average NFL player’s career. I don’t see how you can possibly pay this guy in hopes that he will suddenly become something he’s never been, especially at such a replaceable position. Let him walk after next year and hope someone signs him to a contract that factors into the comp formula. Better yet, see if someone will give you a bag of footballs for him after this season and let them eat the $13,000,000 he’s due.

That’s a bad look. The difference between the two sidelines during the game was striking. BB had a plan and calmly stuck to it. McDermott spent the entire game screaming at the officials and seemingly everyone else. One time in particular Buffalo had just made a defensive stop and he was yelling at all the players as they came off the field. He was yelling positive things at them, but he just looked like a raving lunatic. I don’t know how much a team really reflects the coach’s energy, but there was a distinct difference in demeanor between the two sidelines.

Don’t forget the biggest one. If Edmunds fills the correct gap, that 70 yards TD never happens and this is a VERY different game.