Beck Water

Yes.

I would tell Dan Orlovsky, I would like to understand how he is defining "failure/disappointment" because I don't think he's telling us straight. Kadarius Toney, Henry Ruggs, and N'Keal Harry certainly failures, but what about Dante Pettis? Jaelen Reagor? Rashad Bateman? What about Jameson Williams? Then there are guys who are can play, but maybe just aren't contributing at the level you'd like from a 1st rounder. Then what about the fact that in many of those years, one or more 2nd round picks are out-performing the 1st rounders? Questions, so many questions.

Brandon Beane said that? The same Brandon Beane who said this about Stefon Diggs? "He’s a No. 1 receiver. I firmly believe that. I’m not wavering off of that,” Beane said. “I think teams — Listen, we have to continue to put weapons out there to keep teams from bracketing him or locking him down in different ways to take him away. They know you’re gonna want to — Stef can still play. I’m sure he would love to have that deep ball again. He’d be the first to tell you. He’s super competitive. He’s going to work his tail off this offseason. I know there’s various reasons or questions on this, there’s production and all that, but I still see Stef as a No. 1 receiver.” I think Beane tends to speak the truth, but not "the whole truth" or "nothing but the truth" this time o' year.

Agreed on both points. In 2018, I will say this, though: Buscaglia called the Bills drafting Josh Allen, although he called them as trading up to #5 with Denver vs #7, and giving up 2019 1st rounder as well as 2018 2nd round, and drafting Allen #5. And we have heard from Beane that they had a tentative deal fleshed out with Denver which Denver backed out of because "their guy" was on the board. The thing is, when the Bills traded up in 2018 you could read the tea leaves that they were "QB or Bust". Dealing Cordy Glenn to trade up in the 1st round, etc. Where we are, wanting a team to trade all the way back to #28, is a hard sell, whatever Beane might or might not like to do. PS on the other hand, in 2018 Charlie Campbell had the Bills trading up to #7 and drafting a safety, Derwin James. Nothing against James, he's a fine safety but for the draft resources

You've been banging that "WR don't really matter, teams don't need a top 5 WR, receivers are a dime a dozen" drum in several threads now. Counterpoint: I don't know about "top 5 WR" that seems arbitrary. But here's some evidence about how the teams you cite think about that "they'll have a guy who's top 5 in the stats but he'll get there by being a scheme fit rather than a great receiver" philosophy. TL;DR they're voting with their $$ on that. 1) Detroit just signed their #1, 119 reception, 1515 yd wide receiver Amon Ra St Brown to a 4 year, $120M contract with $77M guaranteed. Why would they do that, if receivers are becoming a dime a dozen and successful teams don't need a top WR, just a "scheme fit"? 2) I don't think Deebo Samuel was signed to a 3 year , $71,550,000 contract with the San Francisco 49ers, including $24,035,000 signing bonus, $58,100,000 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $23,850,000 because the '49ers thought he was "just a scheme fit" where WR are a "dime a dozen" And Christian McCaffrey's a unicorn - part receiver, part running back, and 100% perfect for the Niners, but that team didn't trade away the core of their 2023 draft board (2nd, 3rd, 4th plus 2024 5th), but either way, SF didn't give up that much with the right to pay him $14M this season on top of it because they thought Christian McCaffery was a "dime a dozen" as either a receiver or an RB 3) LA Rams signed Kupp to a 3 year, $80M extension in 2022 of which $75M were guaranteed because they view WR as a "dime a dozen" after his 145 reception, 1947 yd season. They appear to have lucked out with Puka Nacua, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that league-wide talent evaluators weren't saying "see, any old WR could succeed in that system" (if that were true, what stopped 2nd round pick Van Jefferson? What stopped 2nd round pick Tutu Atwell? It's a nice hypothesis but it doesn't seem to stack up against how the teams you mentioned are actually spending their $$.

Other than the end of game drive, last 3 drives were a TD, a fumble, and a punt. So, No.

It absolutely is. My initial example in my response to the tweet was Tremaine Edmunds, who started 82 games in 5 seasons for the Bills. He didn't not get a 2nd contract from the Bills. He had his detractors on TBD, but he didn't get signed to a 4 year, $72M contract with $50M guaranteed from the Bears because league-wide GMs thought he wasn't a "hit" as a draft pick. To the contrary, he was regarded well enough that he priced the Bills out of his market.

by the drafting team....this tweet implies therefore they are not "hits", but, that may not reflect each player's actual career or contributions Example: 2000 draft 1st round WR Peter Warrick (#4) -> played 5 years for Cincy, 1 year FA contract with Seattle Plaxico Burress (#8) -> played 5 years for Pittsburgh, signed a 6 year $25M contract with NYG, big $$ for that time Neither signed a 2nd contract with their drafting team, so both aren't "hits" by the criteria of this tweet But Warrick's best year was 79 catches 819 yds and his FA deal was his last year in the league Burress had 4 - 1000+ yds seasons and finished his "careerus interruptus" with 8500 yds and 553 receptions Very different career trajectories

Yeah, the Saints have the 14th pick One thing I'm pretty certain of is that the draft seldom goes the way we expect it to. Seems to me in 2018 we had people saying like, the first 5 or 6 picks would all be QBs Well, they weren't

I think you're kind of missing the point, but I don't have energy to work on this, sorry!

If you haven't yet watched it, I would strongly recommend that you give a view to JT O'Sullivan "The QB School" Youtube piece on the KC @ Bills playoff game. A team between two great teams will often hinge on 3-5 plays. In this case, we had at least 3 potential game-changing plays, 2 catchable balls that were not; and a throw to the EZ where the blocking call probably wasn't optimal. On two of those plays, the Chiefs D didn't stop us so much as we stopped ourselves. And yes of course, our D wasn't able to stop the Chiefs as much, that's what happens when you start what someone here quipped "the Little Sisters of the Poor" at LB and somewhat at CB.

Oh, Dear. How many TE (first round or not) normally line up as X or Y receivers and find success there?

I'm not sure "signed a second contract with the team that drafted them" is a good criterion to decide if a player is a "hit" or a "miss". Take, for example, Edmunds. Did he sign a 2nd contract with the team that drafted him? No. Was it because he was a "miss"? No, he started 5 years for the Bills and didn't sign a 2nd contract only because he made himself a very high priced FA, and we prioritized re-up'ing our 1st round QB (drafted that same year) and 1st round DT. And (for example) 2019 QB Daniel Jones counts as a "hit" because he was offered a 2nd countract - but do Giants fans count him as a hit? Do we?

I'm going to pick on two of my favorite posters here: On 4/26/2018 at 8:40 PM, HappyDays said: God I actually think we'll start Peterman this year Obviously, both of these gentlemen were proven correct. We DID start Peterman that year, including for the Season Opener (for half a game) and It was a Clown Show

I think we agree far more than we disagree - we certainly agree playing the boundary receiver especially against press man is not Samuel's best "jam". In fact if you look at the charts on Nextgen Stats, looks to me like relatively few from the LOS and ? None? on the boundary? From what I've seen though, calling him a "rich man's McKenzie" is either giving McKenzie too much credit or selling Samuel way too short as the player he's been in the NFL, or both. I think he's a far better route runner than McKenzie evolved into his last 2 years with the Bills (and he did evolve), tracks the ball better, and has far better YAC skills. McKenzie was a glorified gadget guy who flubbed his opportunity to show out as a slot; Samuel is (or has become) a legit slot receiver who has (or had, in Carolina) quickness enough to run gadget stuff. But then, I thought Harty might be an upgrade on McKenzie for route running AND gadget plays and how did that work out, just to put my opinions in context, I can and have been off And again, we agree boundary or x receiver is just not Samuel's jam.

Don't forget this move also cost the Chiefs their 2018 #1. Otherwise good analysis and I agree with you. Imma say if Ben Allbright is reporting it confidently, there's a good chance Beane has been talking to Denver about Pick #12.

I thought (I could be wrong) that NFL.com used the official data from the combine. They typically lack data from players who didn't participate in drills at the combine, for example, even if data from their college pro days is out there. Of course a typo is possible anywhere, I guess. I'm not paying so much attention to his height and weight, as to his scouting report because Zierlein usually says stuff I nod about if I come back to it in a couple years. I "get it" that there's an argument to be made for BPA, but taken to its extreme obviously you could wind up with a team full of DE and no DT or something. So "need" has to crawl into there somehow. Like many here, my perception of the Bills current best receivers (Kincaid, Samuel, Shakir) is that all of them do their best work with a free release, and none of them are at their best trying to win a release against press man on the boundary. Samuel can do it, but I think I read his most recent years have been ~75% of his snaps from the slot. Shakir can play on the boundary but at best "he has to demonstrate" against press man and his short arms handicap him there. IMO, we really have lacked someone with the tools to win against "sticky" physical coverage even with Diggs on the team the last couple of years and it's cost us in playoffs. It certainly cost us in 2019 when our top receivers were 5'10 John Brown and 5'8" Cole Beasley, and Allen wound up directing critical throws to Duke Williams and Pat DiMarco in the playoffs 'cuz Brown and Beasley were being erased. So when I read stuff like " lacks play strength and release quickness to defeat a quality NFL press" and "lacks the physical tools to catch when contested and needs to prove he can hold up to a more physical brand of football" as well as "needs to improve efficiency and quickness getting off the ball. Lack of hand strength gets him bullied on contested catches......Takes reps off when he’s not expecting the throw to come his way......Fails to adjust his speed to ball placement consistently enough." I have a hard time seeing him as the right match of "need-adjusted BPA" or whatever it is being called now. Of course, as Beane has pointed out, there are different ways to fill needs, so if he falls to us and we've rated him as BPA because they have enthusiasm for his potential, So Be It but I'm going to have uncomfortable CJ Spiller flashbacks if the Bills trade up for the guy. I honestly can't pretend to know enough about college football to have a meaningful personal opinion about who we should draft, but I do have views about where the Bills current roster has shown itself lacking the previous season and likely to lack after new-league-year roster moves.

I don't know what is meant by "alpha" - that's usually a term used to reflect dominance, and a rookie really better have a more modest approach and, no matter how good he is, recognize the NFL equivalent of "that's nice sonny, but this here's the fleet" I personally hope the Bills draft someone who will be ready to step in play a majority of the snaps as the X receiver, if that's what you mean, because that's clearly where the gap in the Bills WR game is right now. I think I've queried you before regarding whether you're referring to Curtis Samuel as "a gadget guy that is good with the ball in his hands". If so, I continue to think you're seriously mispresenting a receiver who, except for the season he was on IR, has been playing >60% of the snaps and contributing >60 receptions and >600 yds 4 of his last 5 seasons (the 5th season being, IR). I agree he's not a boundary receiver, but he's way more than "a gadget guy", gadget guys don't take that many snaps or produce that much. WR, no. Receiver, yes. I don't know if you've noticed, but "#1 receiver" seems to be a bit like the term "franchise QB" we used to bruit around all the time when we didn't have one. It means different things to different people and folks argue about it without clarifying what it means to them or the chap they're talking with.

Gentle reminder that the 6th WR off the board is not necessarily the 6th best WR in the draft

Not according to nfl.com draft profiles https://www.nfl.com/prospects/xavier-worthy/3200574f-5274-1496-c9ca-5c4709faa05b Same point though

2) Great, just what we need, another smurf-y Z receiver that lacks the strength and the release to beat press man coverage at the X or Y position, to go with our stable of receivers who are best used playing off the LOS plus Mack "Savage" Hollins. Bills should 100% take their draft advice from Ty Dunne

Friendly reminder that we all wanted Beane to do his "due diligence" on trading in both directions.

Thought this was interesting - a scorecard for who has been the most and least accurate with the rumors https://walterfootball.com/draft2023rumorsresults.php Spoiler: that Charlie Campbell guy is pretty good

Another assessment of Beane's trade-up habits, this one from TBN by Ryan O'Halloran https://buffalonews.com/sports/professional/nfl/bills/buffalo-bills-brandon-beane-nfl-draft/article_db2bf4ac-fe54-11ee-b5ab-47c3d31b4ca2.html The most interesting thing to me is that he rates Elam as a "push" resulting from a trade up. Anyway, it's an assessment based soley on the result (whether or not we got a great or a good player) and not on the opportunity cost (whether a great or good player might have been available at our original pick, and with the pick we used in the trade) Take it FWIW.

It depends a lot upon the context in which I meet them. If I'm just encountering them in passing, I wouldn't try to have a conversation. They have their schedule, I have mine. On the other hand, if we're near each other in the course of things for an extended time, I'll chat. Several years back we had a reserved camping spot next to a man who looked like he'd transplanted his entire Bills tailgating setup to a small state park on the Western shores of Lake Ontario - big Bills-themed canopy floored with Bills rugs, I forget what all else he had except a wife and several young kids who wanted to pet our Very Cheerful and Fluffy Dog. So of course after petting formalities were completed, we struck up a convo about the Bills and I asked if he ever hung out on Bills fan boards and mentioned TBD (he didn't). I've had a couple convos at airport gates and in line to buy fish From A Guy in the Virgin Islands, I don't recall if I mentioned TBD though. She's not a Keeper. Unless she makes REALLY GOOD wings that is.