Beck Water

Someone told me they didn't like calculus. I told them their opinion would change over time. PS don't drink and derive

Is that what you call it

Slept on it and the best I can come up with is that the Bills drafted him to groom as an eventual replacement for Taron Johnson or Matt Milano. Milano similar physical makeup - 6'0" 223 when drafted. Similar evaluation as being a "tweener" between safety and LB If so, that's an example of a trend under Beane, they try to draft guys with high physical ceilings and develop them (AJE, where they asked him to transform his body completely and then re-learn how to play in a new body) rather than guys who can contribute fairly immediately. I don't believe he was drafted to replace Edmunds either. The one game where Bernard saw significant time, was the first NYJ game where he played for Milano. To be fair, he had very novice secondary playing behind him - Hamlin and Jaquan Johnson at safety, Christian Benford as one of the CB. But still, if it was supposed to be a benchmark of "how is he doing on that eventually replace Milano?" growth, the answer was "back in the pot with you!"

Not that this is saying a lot for Epenesa, but some people would argue that Epenesa was significantly better than Basham this year Unless you're comparing Basham this year to Epenesa last year? Which, since the rest of the line was very different, may not be fair.

https://www.silverandblackpride.com/2023/1/26/23553641/raiders-news-dylan-parham-struggled-rookie https://raiderswire.usatoday.com/2023/01/17/dylan-parham-had-up-and-down-rookie-season-with-raiders/ I dunno about "all rookie team", who picks it and what the criteria are. I think he's a bit on the small side for an NFL G? 6'3" 310? And of course the Raiders were not a good team this year either at passing or running the ball so there's a lower bar for getting a lot of snaps with them. But reaction to his play this season was, to say the least, mixed. The point is, while in general, I'm sure there are talented G to be found in the 3rd and 4th round, in specific if we'd drafted Parham, I don't think he'd have seen the field much for the Bills, and if he did, fans might well be asking "Why did we spend a 3rd round pick on an undersized guard who can't see the field and who is surrendering pressure at the highest rate for his position when he does? What a waste of a pick!" I don't understand the Terrel Bernard pick any better than anyone else, but I had a quick look and I didn't see anyone drafted a couple picks before or 10-15 picks afterwards who seemed like a slam-dunk improvement. Maybe there's someone there who will emerge next season. This is not because I'm a huge Bills Drafting Apologist. I'm still salty about Boogie Basham in 2021 when Creed Humphrey was on the board 2 picks later. But, little though I follow college football, I thought it was clear Creed Humphrey was going to be a very very good OL. I think if we want to be salty about last year's draft and OL, the place to be salty might be drafting Kaiir Elam at 23 with Tyler Smith and Tyler Linderbaum right behind him. I don't know if Linderbaum is named to an "all rookie team", but he played C all season for a team that lives and dies with their OL and was named a "Pro Bowl Snub". https://www.baltimoreravens.com/news/tyler-linderbaum-afc-biggest-pro-bowl-snubs Tyler Smith took over for Tyron Smith in Dallas and won praise. I think that's a better example of the Bills drafting for need (needed a corner, so they took Elam) vs. really looking at the qualities of the players. Just me maybe, and of course you could prove right about Dylan Parham.

I got Nothin', sorry. I was hella puzzled by that pick at the time. Well, have a look. Bernard was pick #89 https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2022/draft.htm

There is no "odd logic" here. The fact is, Hodgins exhibited the production he exhibited in NYC as the #2 WR - he saw the field for 80% of the snaps (that's a fact) which is #2 WR territory, not #3 WR territory, whatever you may or may not have said. And the fact is, he got that opportunity in NYC because they had a lot of injuries at the top of their WR depth chart. He didn't get that opportunity here, because we had WR ahead of him. The fact is, Hodgins was on the 53 man roster here from October 3 until November 1, when we waived him and NY claimed him off waivers. During that time, he did not see the field much - because we had 4 healthy WR ahead of him. This really is logic a chap with the screen name "Einstein" ought to be able to handle. If you think Hodgins would have had the same production here as in NYC if we sat Davis, or McKenzie, or Shakir, and played him ahead of them, I don't know what to tell you. That's some weird offensive skills and even offensive production evaluation. Hodgins production in NYC was 43 ypg on 78% of the snaps per game Gabe Davis put up 55.7 ypg on 91% of the snaps per game McKenzie is a different style of receiver playing a different role, that Hodgins would not have filled. Wyatt Teller was not an all-pro guard when he was traded to Cleveland. Nor was he an all-pro guard for 2 years after he was traded to Cleveland He also became an all-pro on a run-first team where run blocking is of paramount importance and the run sets up the pass. With the benefit of hindsight, would Beane have liked to keep him, I'm sure, but speaking of twisting words and odd logic - stop writing as though we cut an all-pro guard or as though the same skillset that made a guy an all-pro in Cleveland would have been what was needed here.

Haven't you heard of the new "Morning After Pill" for men? It changes your DNA!

IMO, it's past time to use some draft resources at OL and WR

There's a feature in the Olean Times Herald by long-time sportswriter Chuck Pollack https://www.oleantimesherald.com/sports/evidently-bills-picked-salgado-to-be-scapegoat/article_43488b31-baa6-524f-b181-40297053fa69.html I'm not sure Salgado is a scapegoat, per se. I don't think guys like Hyde and Poyer take much coaching, but more knowledgeable heads than mine have pointed out that when the backups came in, their lack of scheme knowledge was evident. Moreover, McDermott really trusts Hyde, and if Hyde gave his feedback in his exit interview that the coaching wasn't up to par this season (Salgado's 1st year as safeties coach), McDermott would likely weight that heavily. So far, it's the only change we've heard of. I respect McDermott and Beane for taking their time and evaluating thoroughly this week and the next before making their moves. I also do believe that McDermott prefers the "low ripple" approach of having guys "pursue new opportunities" elsewhere vs. firing them. But...if we go into a new season with that as our only change on the coaching side of the ball, will anyone else be disappointed? I'm not an "off with their heads" type, but the more I think about it, the more I do feel we need change. Yeah, I know we went into the Bengals game with two starters on the DL out and two more playing injured. But against 3 backup OL on the Bengals, it really does stick in my craw that the DL played so poorly, especially considering that they had 3 former 1st round picks (Rousseau, Lawson, Oliver) and 3 former 2nd round picks (Epenesa, Basham, Jordan Phillilps) on the field. All but one of them was drafted by the Bills albeit Lawson a year before this group took over - still, that's a lot of draft investment On the OL side, we have 3 former 2nd round picks (Dawkins, Saffold, Morse), a 3rd round pick (Brown), and an UDFA, and none of them were on injury report. There's less draft resources invested, but that's still a fair bit of resources to play like dogcrap.

The latter. Not as a definite "plan" but as "we will evaluate this off season" The latter. Not as a definite "plan" but as "we will evaluate this off season". Stated by McDermott. The latter. Not as a definite "plan" but as "we will evaluate this off season". Stated by McDermott.

McDermott said it was a consideration in his end-of-season presser on Monday.

Agreed

Joe Buscaglia had some stuff on that in a couple of his articles in the Athletic. One game it was like 40%. This was after Crowder went down, but before mid-season.

As shown by you taking the time to read this thread and post here. Free clue: when I want to persuade someone "we really didn't care right now", I don't use my time to, well, show that I care enough to do that.

He's a Gamer, no doubt - said to have played through a tear in his knee this season. And has been a consistent contributor. An upgrade, no doubt. But what would he want? He signed a tender in NE for 1 year at $4M last season. He's coming off an injury. Spotrac suggests he has a market value of $12.5M, 4 year/$50M I'll put it out there, while I'd love to make the Patriots weaker, if we have to choose between spending money on the OL or spending money at WR, I'm 100% down with let's spend money on the OL and fix that. Because if we can get a stronger OL, I think that would make all our WR look better. At least half the problem with our short range targets IMO is Josh staying in pocket and getting the ball to them. And that starts with Josh feeling that he has a pocket to stay in. Diggs already played in the slot what, 30% of the time? this season? I could be wrong, but I don't think Diggs wants to play in the slot that much. The plus of course is the free release. The minus is that slot receivers especially with Josh, make plays in traffic. Diggs prefers to get out of bounds or get down.

But the team is loaded with slots, only with Crowder and Beasley factored in, right? Otherwise, we have Shakir (who hasn't yet proven he can play the sort of slot routes Beasley ran, actually) and McKenzie (who hasn't yet proven he can get open in zone reliably)

There's another point about McKenzie. When the Big Dogs fled the building (Diggs, Davis), McKenzie stayed behind to catch the flak and talk to the press. Cowboyed up, didn't make excuses, "I don't even know how you run out of gas in a playoff game when it's win or go home, we played a good team and got beat, that's all". So there was some leadership and accountability there. Can we find someone better? That'd be great. But as @MAJBobby pointed out, outside of a small $250k roster bonus due at the start of the league year, McKenzie has no guaranteed money. It costs nothing to carry him through the spring and into training camp.

So my understanding, and I feel certain someone will correct me if I'm wrong, is that Oliver's role as a 3TDT in this defense is, in fact, to penetrate not just "clog up the middle". The "soak up the double teams" role belongs to the 1TDT (who is also expected to provide pressure in the middle), DaQuan Jones. Ed Oliver had some great games this season, where McDermott said afterwards "that's his new weekly standard" or words to that effect. Ed Oliver also had some games where the 3TDT Von Miller was calling out for praise was 30 year old Jordan Phillips. It didn't help that both were playing injured the 2nd half of the season, but overall in this season Ed Oliver's problem is what it's always been - he's not consistent. He has great games, and games where he disappears. I think that's the key point. High round draft picks who don't perform up to expectation and aren't offered the contract they believe they deserve, tend to shop around with other teams, before taking a contract that is typically lower than they believe they deserve, but higher than the drafting team is offering them.

OK, Einstein. Let's put into the mix that Daboll's WR use was driven by the fact that his #1, Sterling Shepard, was on IR and their hoped-for #2, 2021 1st round pick Kadarius Toney, worked his way out of town. That left them very thin. So Hodgins was actually their #2 WR, getting 80% of the snaps. Their "Gabe Davis" as it were. Are you seriously trying to argue that we should have put Gabe Davis on the bench for Isaiah Hodgins? Hodgins had his chance in preseason to make that case. He didn't.

To be honest, I thought part of the Bills problem as a team was that the regular season became just a waiting game for them. Instead of, as most of them do, just going out there to enjoy playing football and try in every way to get better and better every week. I thought it became a chore. And as a chore, football will absolutely grind guys down. At first, I wanted to disagree with this, and to an extent I do. I saw "plays outside of the scheme" made on offense - I've seen Morris, Knox, Davis, yes McKenzie, even Shakir, realize that the play has broken down and make that off-schedule play. IMO, a big part of the Bills problem is not making enough plays ON schedule. The on time, on target throw to the receiver who is open underneath and has YAC opportunities. I fundamentally agree with something Kurt Warner said, which I know was controversial to many here but perhaps the end of the season helps put it in perspective. He wants Allen to get better about recognizing and taking the on-schedule play the defense gives them. His point is, the Bills were winning all season with Allen making 10-15 elite "special player" plays every game, but that's a hard thing to sustain especially against the best teams, and that if Allen would trust the team to make plays for him and take some of those easy, on schedule plays then make 4 or 5 elite plays per game, the team overall would play better. There's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy here On the other hand, after a few sleeps on it, I think you do have a very valid point that the Bills just don't have the same number of elite players on their team that some of these other teams do - the Chase PLUS Higgins PLUS Boyd, the AJ Brown PLUS DaVonte Smith PLUS Sanders, the Kittle PLUS McCaffery PLUS Samuel PLUS Aiyuk. But then again, I come back and ask myself how much of their success is due to having a QB who is a bit less of a unicorn and a bit better at reading the D and distributing the ball in a timely efficient way.

Sadly, that's kind of what I see. When he knows what to expect, he seems to do OK. When an edge rusher is "like a freight train coming your way" then a "no leaf clover" would be about as much protection to Josh. I Guess. I'm just sick and tired of "making do" on our line. I suppose I have a better chance of winning the lottery than seeing Beane really soak in and do a Kansas City or Bengals type rebuild.

Yeah, I Get It, and I do understand that POV. But I can’t deny the ability of ST to swing a game (see Hines, 2nd NE game) so I can’t, myself, say that they’re wrong.

I could be mistaken, but I don’t think they keep a player in “concussion protocol” for “precautionary reasons”. I think if he could progress, he would. I agree with the others who say he seems like a good person and (outside of being a Dolphin) I wish him the best.