Beck Water

If your point is that the Bills should be very very very sure and then be even more sure before trading, not the entire draft, but maybe top picks from this year AND next...I agree with you If your point is the Bills don't need a guy who can play X or boundary receiver because we can put 2 TE on the line and play our receivers off ball - I disagree My caveat being that I think what you need there is a guy who is "sturdy enough" and "big enough" and "fast enough" combined with being a human who is "very good at football" as Dawkins once said of Diggs....sure other things being equal as @Buffalo716 take the guy who is bigger and faster....but chasing size and speed in receivers sometimes mean you wind up with a guy who is not as good at playing football as a guy with OK size but great moves and hands....mensa conclusion I know I think this ball-parking is incorrect.....the Bills play a lot more man than you think. The reason they wanted Elam, of course, is that Levi Wallace and Dane Jackson were Burnt Toast playing man, that's one of the things we lost when Tre White was injured. But with Benford and Douglas I think they played man last year more than you'd think.

So clarifying, that was for 2022, not 2023?

I would love to find the source, too, I have a pretty decent memory so I believe I read it - actually it may have been in a Cover1 video - but I've been rummaging around and no can find. Lots of stuff on which Ds play the most man by down and etc. I don't subscribe to any of the stat services though, so maybe someone here who does could find it. Well, he's on to the Titans now.

Well, we've talked before, you know I acknowledge that when it comes to watching broadcast film I have "slow eyes" and need all-22 and a couple watchings to know what I'm seeing....but to my eyes, we had real problems beating man coverage last season and that includes Diggs, at least in the 2nd half of the season. It wasn't always press, in that JT O'Sullivan QB School youtube vid on the division game vs KC you can see routes where Snead just sat back and waited for Diggs route to bring him to him, basically - he must have felt pretty confident he understood what route concepts were going to be run from different sets and cues.

Actually.....I read somewhere (and if you ask me for a link, answer is "I don't got it") the Bills faced one of the highest % of man coverage last season because Diggs for whatever reason was having uncharacteristic problems getting a clean release off press man and beating physical man coverage downfield, as he did in previous years, and that link you shared from PFF illustrates why....absolutely no one else on the team was beating it - not Harty, not Shakir, not Sherfield, not Davis vs 2020 and 2021 where IIRC we had one of the lowest rates of man coverage because our receivers would kill it and Josh would carve it up.

I hope Beane remembers that.

No 1st round (traded for Sammy Watkins prior year) - can we get that one back? 2nd round Ronald Darby - Beane and McDermott traded him away for Jordan Matthews and a 2018 3rd rounder - he is actually a pretty decent player, has struggled with injuries (2 ACLs and a hip) but played for the Ravens last season and just signed a 2-year with Jax, still in the league 3rd round John Miller - we moved on from him after 2018, but I lean towards Juan Castillo was more the problem - he went on to start for the Bengals and Panthers before hanging up his cleats in 2022, which is OK mileage for a 3rd rounder The rest of that draft - Yikes! and Yowza, yeah, if we could trade them away that's be good.

@Shaw66 you and I pretty much disagree entirely about the value of a "#1" or "X" or "boundary" receiver [in the sense of a guy who is "that good at football" and can get open on his own with some combination of moves, speed, strength and or size], with you saying there isn't a need, WR are a dime a dozen now a days, and teams don't value them because modern offenses just scheme guys open, and me offering various counter-points and data. But we agree completely on this. Sell the farm to move up for a guy you think can be the QB for the next 10-14 yrs But WR? No, the opportunity cost of losing 3 cost-controlled good players, too high.

To be fair, I've heard more than one guy who is plugged in say that these days of GPS, the NFL FOs work far more off GPS data they now have in-game for college prospects vs. the "underwear olympics" at the combine.

I just wanna say I really like this trade for the Bills. I think it's fair value for both parties If we're going to trade up, this is the sort of trade up I'd like to see. And I don't know much about Brian Thomas Jr but I like his draft profile. Virgil, once again, a big salute for all the work you put in year after year to do these. SALute!

Well, I don't have cable so it's either ABC or bananagrams. I'm kind of leaning towards bananagrams.

I would say that the latter is the cause of the former - the Bengals probably want to negotiate with Chase and then work out other contracts. JMO.

Isn't that already here?

I thought you could bet about damned near anything now a days

Now this is interesting. We've been talking about #1 receivers. I just went back and looked at what you wrote in your post to which I replied. You did not use the phrase "typical stud receiver" or "big tall fast guys". This is what you said: "I think, in fact, that receivers are becoming a dime a dozen, just like running backs. Successful teams don't need a top-five running back, and I think the passing game already has evolved to the point that they don't need a top-five receiver. I mean, they'll have a guy who is top-five in the stats, but he'll get there by being a scheme fit rather than being a great receiver. I think that's exactly what we've seen in Kansas City. And it's what we've seen in LA and Detroit and SF. " I'm speaking to the point that guys like Kupp, Samuel, and St Brown are special players, and their teams regard them as special players. They are getting paid like special players. To use Emmanual Acho's term, they are "Freakazoids". I searched your content for stuff about #1 receivers, stud receivers, and big tall fast guys. Bearing in mind the search engine here has its flaws, I don't find a lot of stuff where you specify that to you, #1 receiver or stud receiver means "tall big fast" to you. In fact, to the contrary. So if that's now what #1 receiver or stud receiver means to you, I'll agree that teams have value for WR who don't fit that mold now a days. But I don't think that's because receivers are a dime a dozen or because they are 'scheme fits', as you said in the post I responded to above. From your post linked above, you said "A typical #2 is not good to great at getting separation and is not good to great at making contested catches. A guy who is good to great at one or both of those skills is a #1 receiver. People are naming players like Hill and Waddle and Cinci's wideouts. Someone mentioned Gronk and Edelman. They're all #1 receivers. Why? Because they're all good to great at getting open using their own skills, or in Gronk's case they're open when they're covered, so they don't need to separate." I agree completely with your description of a #1 receiver quoted above, from August of 2023 to be fair. There's nothing in there about "big tall fast guys", and I think that's appropriate. I call to mind something Dawkins said about watching Diggs during an off season throwing session right after Diggs was traded to the Bills. It was something to the effect of "until then, I didn't realize a human could be that good at football". That's a #1 WR to me: not a "big tall fast" guy, but a human who is "that good at football", who can separate, who can make contested catches, who - as you said in Aug 2023 - is "good to great at getting open using their own skills or is open when covered" or as Dawkins said, is "just that good at football" Jefferson is a #1 WR even though he's not that tall and not that fast, because he has those traits. Amon-Ra St Brown, same. I believe teams still covet big tall fast guys and super-fast shifty guys who are "just that good at football". The catch (see what I did there?) is that while in theory, these guys superior physical traits should help them get open or be "open when covered". But a lot of times, other things aren't equal, which is why a 5th round receiver like Diggs or a 4th round receiver like Amon Ra St Brown who has enough height and speed but also the hard-to-define ability run deceptive routes, to fake DBs out of their cleats, who have passion and works at their craft, becomes better at football. I don't believe so many WR get drafted in the first round because they are "decent scheme fits", nor do they get highly paid because of this. They get drafted in the first round because based upon college tape and measurables, GMs believe they will be "a human who could be just that good at football" in the NFL. And that's why they get paid, too, once they prove that's who they are. Elsewhere, I made the point as far as I can tell, "#1 receiver" is becoming like "franchise QB" used to be on this board BA (before Allen): a term that people define in different ways, without realizing it, resulting in a lot of talking past each other. But in this exchange, it seems to me you are changing up what you're talking about, to insert a definition of #1 WR as a "big tall fast stud" that you weren't stating in your various posts on this topic, and that differs from a definition you have used in previous posts (like last August, quoted above).