Einstein's Dog

Also for the quote "the so-called elite #1 outside WR is not commonly found in Superbowl winners in recent history", what about Cooper Kupp or if he doesn't qualify OBJ, then there is Mike Evans, and a little before that Tyreek Hill. It's certainly not like having a good outside WR is going to hinder you in winning the SB. As to the bold above, my fear with hoping it works out is it might become a deliberate strategy going forward - like cheap investments in RBs, this could be a trial run by the FO on a "dime a dozen" WR theory. It's frightening to think about.

I agree that generally the draft is for the future and you shouldn't draft for immediate need, but sometimes they do. I would have much preferred a large investment into a top tier WR. I also like using the early picks on premium positions with high ceilings. Hopefully they've done that. But if you do that you would generally value the 5th year option. I have difficulty with that little move down - especially when we ended up with extra draft capital for next year (picked up another 4th along the way). Looked like Carolina valued the 5th year option for Legette.

I'm with you. There is no doubt net investment-wise in offense there was a huge step back. This is not like other years at all. Diggs $22 + Davis = approx $25M, C Samuel + K Coleman = approx $11M, and they netted money with getting rid of Morse. I like K Coleman as a player, I think his attitude is great but have a hard time understanding the thought process. Coleman seems by almost everyone's account to be a young, athletic, raw prospect. But with the current state of the team we need a pro-ready somewhat immediate player. From that perspective it made more sense to move out of the first round and get the more pro-ready, lower ceiling player (McConkey) over the high ceiling young player (Coleman). If they were taking the higher ceiling player why didn't they get the 5th year option? I can only think this WR transformation was vetted by Beane through Pegula/McD/J Brady + Josh. Expectations have probably been lowered.

Lets not group last year with this year. Up until this year it looked like they were moving towards better offense. And it was showing- Kincaid/Shakir+Cook are exciting. But this year, it looks like a major back-slide in offensive investment, especially in the WR room. They got rid of a 1st round pick, $20M+ (Diggs) and replaced him with a second round $3M player (K Coleman). They got rid of G Davis a 5th round $13M player and replaced him with a $8M FA (Samuels). They got rid of somewhat expensive depth WRs (Sherfield/Harty) and replaced them with bargain misfits MVS/Claypool.

For me the frustration has come in feeling the Bills have a lot of potential in many of the offensive playmakers - Kincaid/Shakir/Cook. They were going to replace/improve G Davis and that could be with the rookie/Samuel. That just left getting one top tier expenditure. So close, but they didn't pull the trigger. Now the fear is this philosophy might turn long term. If they can be a playoff team with no expensive WR, maybe they keep doing it. It'll kill me. Great QB with rocket arm will be schemed by OC/FO to distribute the ball.

This is the fear everyone wants not to be true. The possibility that the business executive type Laura - not Kim's offspring- now has "business influence". The Bills had several years where it looked like cash wasn't an issue. This year not so much. We're operating a lot more like Cincy now than Philly. It makes good marketing and business sense to wait until next year before the opening of the stadium to do your big signing. The downside is that your WR room looks horrid for a year.

For me, there is making sense of moves. I don't mind the pick, it's just the process that is confusing to me. They like K Coleman but moved down twice. With both outside WRs from last year gone, they take a WR that by most accounts is young and raw, and should be given some time. And building on above, getting a young, raw, high ceiling WR, they gave up the 5th year option.

This is a major reason in my change in opinion of Beane, doing a rebuild during a prime Josh year is wrong. Plus these: The rebuild is not rebuilding the WR room. The future of the WRs for 2025 remains a mystery and will need work next year. Why not take two - like T Franklin. Or what would have been better is to address it this year for multiple more. If rebuilding why K Coleman? The young, raw prospect over the more pro-ready prospects. Why give up the 5th year option by moving down one year? K Coleman is supposed to be the young, raw, higher ceiling player. I know draft picks but we had plenty, so much so that we took an extra in 2025. I don't want the strategy of the Bills going forward to not include good outside WRs. This trial period makes me nervous.

I liked the Samuel signing at the time. I think he is a reasonably priced WR2/3. And he has versatility to back-up both Shakir and a little of Cook. Much better IMO than McKenzie or Sherfield/Harty. And at that time we still had DIggs, so I thought Samuel would be the second outside WR until a rookie could take it. This is why I'm wondering when exactly they decided they had to move Diggs. If it was early (like pre- C Samuel signing) it doesn't make as much sense to me. If they knew they were moving Diggs they had a huge hole at outside WR- with both Diggs + Davis leaving. A rookie was never intended to be an immediate answer. But even if intended to be an intermediate answer K Coleman seems an odd choice - a young, raw, athletic, high ceiling type. And why would you give up the 5th year option on that type of WR. Having a "kicking the can down the road" contract for a top tier WR is what I thought they would do. I continued thinking it right up through the Tre money.

My point was they gave C Samuel a good portion of the amount of money allocated to the WR position, and he has not been primarily an outside WR. C Samuel was guaranteed $15M with an out for 2026, so that is $7.5M/yr of real money. You can play cap games with anyone, DHop had a $1.8M salary last year for Tenn and Diggs a cap hit of around $6M for Houston this year. The Bills chose not to allocate real money and play cap games with a top tier outside WR.

I like the addition of Davis, much better backup than the retread veterans of yore. Plus it continues the good strategy of grooming in-house and not maybe not paying vet RBs. I say "maybe' because J Cook might be the exception. If you extrapolate J Cook's rapid improvement rate he has the potential to be exceptional - on the level of McCaffery. Yes, I said it. J Brady sees it and was designing plays to be more centric to the abilities of J Cook and away from Diggs and Davis. The ball security issues reduced dramatically, even with more touches, indicates he is more mentally focused. Next up are the drops. The talked about drops from Cook were higher degree of difficulty catches than most RBs get. These were not the behind the line type Singletary malfunctions. J Cook is improving before our eyes and so many people here can't see it. J Brady is behind it. As currently constructed, J Cook is designed to be a huge piece of the upcoming season. Kincaid/Cook/Shakir are the main cogs surrounding Josh. J Cook is a high buy IMO in FF. We see what J Brady is doing, and J Cook is going to be the showcase RB in a more conservative, yet potent offense. Cook is in an ideal situation.

My original point to BFF19 above was to rebut his T Franklin is not good because teams passed on him, teams passed on K Coleman too. To your point, Beane clearly had a tier that was grouped similarly. He couldn't have known who everyone was taking, and trades could swoop in on teams over us. Beane was willing to take that chance. Beane in that Dunne article said something to the affect that K Coleman was young and needed to be molded like clay. Not something you would say about someone you would want to plug and play for Diggs. One of the tradebacks was to drop out of the first round. Carolina seems to have wanted to get Legette in the first for the 5th year option. Doesn't seem the same level of interest out of Beane for Coleman.

But what's Beane's excuse? Beane is known to hold a grudge, remember the Washington fiasco. McDermott may have forgiven Dunne but Beane didn't have to help that guy out.

They may have had K Coleman/McConkey/T Franklin/Pearsall all in the same tier. If may have been a reason the Bills were comfortable moving down in the draft. But the Bills draft strategy may have been to just take one WR early. And then draft other positions that they felt could fill a need throughout the remaining rounds. WR, S, DT, RB, OC, LB, DE, OT, CB. That's nine players on rookie salaries.

I agree we could use all 3. But once the FO knew they had the cap/cash constraints they had to make choices. With a limited budget putting $8M into the Crowder/McKenzie role seems excessive, especially in light of not having the Diggs/Davis roles secured. That's why I wonder if things didn't go further south after they acquired C Samuel. I had thought for a long time that the plan was Samuel as the bridge for the rookie at outside while being the major backup for Shakir. A versatile piece that fit in with a dual role (and potentially help fill part of the J Cook role if he got injured). That's valuable. Having Samuel slated as a starting outside WR is not his strength. Getting an expensive backup when you need two outside WRs though doesn't make as much sense.

Well the plan shouldn't just be for the 2024 season. SF who doesn't have immediate need for a WR used a 1st and 4th- seems like they have a plan. Remember when the Bills needed a CB and drafted Elam and a 6th- that was wise for the CB room that year (even though in my mind that was the year they should have been planning for the WR problem, going C Watkins or Pickens). To me, if we had K Coleman and T Franklin the future would be more exciting. Speaking of not having much of a plan, what is the thinking for 2025? Right now the same major void at WR looms. Maybe the plan is to wait several weeks in and see if they can get a WR from one of the losing franchises that need a QB, Raiders/Tenn/Seattle. But that comes across as more of a desperation move than a plan.

I agree this lineup with the old-style Diggs would be extremely potent. I wonder when the Diggs situation got so bad. To me, it was when Diggs did the flag football at the pro bowl. It was hard for me to process that Diggs wasn't hurt. His actions/play the second half were unacceptable without a nagging injury. It seemed like for the upcoming season it would be a choice between Diggs and J Brady, they weren't compatible. It seems like for the FO it was a little later. Because without Diggs the C Samuel acquisition doesn't look as good of a match. The need for an outside WR would have been a much higher priority IMO. Blame for Beane can be more recent than Diggs/Von. After trading Diggs, there should have been a better plan than this IMO. The double dip would look a lot better to me. We saw SF do it while having Deebo + Aiyuk already on board - in anticipation of not being able to keep someone when Brock gets paid.

In your opinion who should I direct my disdain/frustration that the Bills best on-paper WR for 2024 is looking to be C Samuel. That's disgraceful. How do you assign blame: 1. J Brady - you mention above you think this might be his hand-picked ragamuffin crew. Ouch. But seems any OC would want better material to work with, even if they have a preferred scheme to spread it out. 2. Beane - no way around placing some blame here, really a matter of just how much. An incredibly disappointing offseason IMO on this WR issue. 3. McDermott - kind of a stretch IMO, but he certainly seems to be able to roll with the situation, and seems to favor complementary football. And if you want out of J Brady you kind of have to get rid of McD too. 4. Beane/McD/+Brady - joint decision. If the Bills miss the playoffs they all should go. Bring in B Johnson or B Belichick 5. Pegula - could be going cheap a bit. May have directed the whole crew for a cap reset and in the process give them a mulligan for the season. I don't think the front office has made a significant investment/pre-pay since we lost Kim's influence. However, even with limited resources Beane must take some accountability in how it was spent/drafted. 6. The plan may be to make-do this year and get reinforcements, in a decently priced WR, next year, prior to the new stadium opening. I'm certainly hoping for this over the idea that having a test run for how a ragamuffin crew can compete decently - and thus not bother getting good WRs.

I wouldn't care much except for the WR dilemma. Now with no top tier WRs, I don't want that to become the plan going forward. It makes me nervous about what happens with positive results. I don't want the "dime a dozen WR" strategy.

Also there have been Superbowl winners that invested in WRs. Tampa had M Evans/C Godwin (along with Gronk and Gage), and LA had C Kupp + OBJ.

I agree with most of what you said. The only thing I might view differently is we have a pretty good idea of the kind of offense Brady will run - similar to the end of last year,. It's not so much an overhaul at WR as an on-paper downgrade. Last year it looked like the personnel at outside WR derailed Dorsey's offense. Seems unlikely J Brady would reinstitute that type of offense with people less suited for it (MVS/Claypool vs Diggs/Davis). The real question to me is how much do they have Josh run. If Josh is put on restriction again.

How can you even entertain the idea that it is a clean swap? C'mon, I know you said "extremely charitable" but even that is too much. There is no like for like in this year over year analysis. The market value of what we had vs have: Diggs $20M, G Davis $13M, Sherfield (Minn), and Harty (Balt). Now have Samuel $8M, K Cole $2.5M and borderline types of MVS/Claypool (Sherfield/Harty equivalents). That's over $20M less of market value worth in WRs. And RBs went from L Murray to 4th rounder. And even TEs although the same Knox took a pay cut.

I do think moving on from Diggs had to happen if they wanted to keep J Brady. After the season I was kind of shocked to see Diggs didn't have an injury. His actions (and play) towards the end of the season were a problem. So, I can understand the move, I just don't like the replacement plan. As for double dipping, anyone the Bills got in the 3rd-4th would have been passed by everyone else. Of course. K Coleman was pretty much passed by everyone else and Beane was so unafraid of him getting picked that he traded down twice. Doesn't mean Coleman can't be good. At the time I was rooting against the double dip and hoping Beane had bigger plans. But now in retrospect I am wishing there was another 3rd-4th rounder to watch develop instead of plugging my nose and hoping Claypool or MVS can turn it around. Actually I'm excited about the rest of the playmakers except for the outside WRs. That makes it a little more frustrating. We're so close to an overall explosive offense.

Seems like a missed move. Not only would DHop have been a great fit in Dorsey's system - which had crushing blow after blow by G Davis- it would have been a great bridge for knowing they were moving on from G Davis the next year. And it could have been Diggs insurance. There could have been some downside though - Diggs may have quit earlier, thrown some type of diva hissy fit.

Most of what you are bringing up is just showing either a disregard or misstep on the WR room. For me, I wanted a WR instead of the Elam pick (Watkins/Pickens). The next year really pleased with the Kincaid pick but was hoping for a DHop pick up. Those were moves that could have helped bolster the weapons before this season. Beane knew the Bills weren't extending G Davis, there should have been some succession planning. Beane made the decision to unload Diggs. Currently a disgruntled Diggs looks better than any WR we have. It comes off now as looking like Beane went to Diggs to take a pay cut. Diggs refused with "Ready for watever" and "Well...." coming to mind. Beane looked pretty smart playing hard ball with Von and Knox, coming away with concessions. Not so good with the Diggs situation. I thought Beane would have had a backup plan. Even with everything that happened with Diggs, Beane could have double dipped in the draft, a second (Coleman) and late 3rd (Franklin), coupled with OBJ things would seem a lot better.