Beck Water

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.

Normally I would walk away, understanding that we simply are looking at this from different POV and we're never going to agree. But there are some factual things here that might affect understanding other issues. The minute a drafted player gets cut and placed on practice squad, his rookie deal goes away, Poof! So Hodgins was and is NOT on the rookie deal you expect from a player drafted in 2020. Now - when the Bills signed Hodgins to the active roster October 8 after Crowder broke his leg, they in fact did offer him more than the typical 1 year contract, specifically a 2 year contract (meaning 1 more year, not two more years). showing that they still liked him and wanted to keep him. Kumerow, while a vet and earning more, has been on a VSB contract (veteral salary benefit), meaning he pretty much counts the same as Hodgins against the cap. Kumerow's first 2 years in the league for GB, he caught 20 passes for 322 yds on 464 snaps (in 36-37% of the snaps). Hodgins with the G-men caught 33 passes for 351 yds on 417 snaps (78% of the snaps)

Just noticed this. Tua is STILL in concussion protocol as of January 26, and is not expected to participate in the Pro Bowl. That guy should really take his $25M guaranteed and go sit on a beach somewhere, before he ends up like Kolb with permanent disabilities (if he isn't already there)

I would just like to point out ....they prioritized a starter/key contributor on ST over the #5 WR on offense, because that would have been Hodgins role here. As a basis for fact, in the 2 early season games where Kumerow saw substantial snaps, he had 4 receptions on 5 targets for 64 yds + ST In the same time window, Hodgins saw 4 receptions on 6 targets for 41 yds. That's the comparator the Bills brain trust was looking at when they released Hodgins, not "offered nothing" Again, I like Hodgins, I'm sure the Bills would prefer to have kept him, but Hodgins was playing 78% of the snaps for the Giants. He would not have been playing that many snaps for the Bills, unless you swap him out for Gabe Davis.

I actually think that moving Oliver might be something we look at, but I agree with you - he would either be moved for a draft pick or, in the kind of swap that brought Jerry Hughes here and sent Kelvin Sheppard to the Colts - swap players who show flashes but didn't quite live up to the needs of their drafting teams, and see if they're a better fit in another scheme under different coaching. Agreed on all points.

I think it shows the difference between athleticism during tests, vs. playing speed. He seems to have very slow feet, and/or slow mental reactions. Speed rushers treat him like he's standing still. I think he looked better next to Williams than he did next to Bates. I'm not sure where the problem is but pass-offs seem slow.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but isn't one of the criticisms of Brown, that he doesn't get enough knee bend? So moving him to guard, which would require more knee bend, would seem like a disaster. When Beane was talking about Brown in his presser (how he had to get surgery and missed the off season and he is still developing) I was having awful flashbacks to the "wrong road" of Cody Ford and how Beane talked about him.

I do wish we had a "face palm" reaction emoji. We have two good OL - Dawkins and Morse. So of course, your plan calls for cutting one and moving the other. 1) If KC can't re-sign Orlando Brown, the only reason is going to be because they can't meet his salary demands. But the only reason Brown is in KC in the first place is because he wanted to play LT and the Ravens didn't want to accomodate that. So this plan would involve relocating Dawkins to RT, where he hasn't played. Nice start. 2) Why don't we trade Ed Oliver for a top WR like DeAndre Hopkins while we're at it? Again, if someone is trading an all-pro guard, the reason is because that player is (like Ed) on the last year of his contract and the team either a) thinks he's falling off and no longer worth his salt or b) knows it can't meet his contract demands and wants something. But usually, teams don't trade all-pro guards. 3) "Hope" is not a sound player development strategy, especially for C, the most important position on the OL. I'm 100% in favor of drafting the best C/G we can find, but you don't move on from Morse until you know you have someone who can do the job behind him. Beane needs to find his cap savings somewhere else than our OL. Here I have that concern about coaching. Kromer was hailed as a big name hire by McDermott last season, but I'm not sure we got what we wanted there. I do think we need a significant upgrade in personnel. Even if we grant Brown a "pass" as still developing/hampered in his off season by injury, I think we need to have a better "plan B" at RT than Quessenberry, and I think Bates and Boettger are solid depth. We need what we hoped we were getting from Saffold.

The LAST thing the Bills FO and coaches should be worrying about right now is "pacifying the fans" They're essentially conducting an accident investigation. There's likely to be "plenty of blame to go around", but they need to try to sort out the causal from the ancillary factors. Then they need to decide which can be changed by keeping the same personnel but changing their approach, and which require new people. I think the frustrated fans would like to see the Pegulas "burn it down" and bring in new people, but that's not a necessarily a proven strategy to go from "good to great". Sometimes it works - an example might be Doug Pederson exiting the playoffs with Div and WC wins after their SB. After the next year, the Eagles brought in Sirianni, returned to the playoffs, and are going to the NFC championship game. Or, the Vikings, replacing Zimmer with O'Connell after two years of losing seasons and at least returning to the playoffs - even if they did get whupped in the WC round. But other times it's a disaster, like Denver deciding to move on from Kubiak when their SB run was followed by a disappointing 9-7 season - only to cycle through 3 different HC and 6 losing seasons since then. Or the Chicago Bears, who moved on from Lovie Smith after a Conference Championship loss was followed by an 8-8 and 10-6 season, both without playoffs. 10 seasons since then, 4 head coaches, only 1 winning season, 2 WC losses. Note, I am not arguing here for or against keeping our FO and coaches. I'm arguing against change for the sake of change, or to "pacify the fans".

Part of it is I think a shift in who Erik has breaking down film with him. They used to be almost exclusively former players in HS and college whose knowledge of scheme and plays went bone deep, now it's more journalism interns and stats guys. And he's monetized, meaning he depends upon number of clicks and views to keep them and pay his guys. Right now coverage that blames players would go over like the proverbial "Led Zeppelin" with their viewers. JMO of course. And thank you for the breakdowns.

Just a little comment that you need to take Cover1 with a grain of salt. I truly value them - I don't subscribe but I watch their stuff and find value. You're absolutely correct that they try to be fact-based and don't suffer from vitriol. But they're mistaken sometimes. A lot of the Cover1 guys, including Erik, are essentially what some of the members are here - guys who played football in HS, sometimes college, whose goal is to share their X's and O's knowledge with the fans. Recently he has been bringing in guys who have journalist backgrounds vs. former players, meaning they're what even more of the members are here, passionate fans who are self-taught about X's and O's. At core, they're very knowledgeable fans who put effort and time into their avocation, but not professionals or true experts. They're always worth watching and listening to IMO, but sometimes they're right, sometimes they're "homer", and sometimes they follow a narrative (as all these podcast/youtube guys who depend on clicks and follows to keep sponsors and make money must do). And, as noted above, sometimes they're mistaken. As far as safeties, Micah Hyde is under contract and medically cleared. I personally think Damar will be back. McDermott mentioned that converting Christian Benford from DB to safety is a consideration. I think we'll find safeties.

I'm glad you're not Terry. Seriously. Arians philosophically is like the opposite of what the Bills need for Josh Allen. Google search and read up on some of the stuff that was discussed when Brady joined the Bucs, and how Brady had to get Arians to change his offense.

I hope not. Not because I believe that in hindsight, given a do-over, they wouldn't prefer to have kept Hodgins than to elevate Tanner Gentry for Week 11 and 12 and bring John Brown off his sofa to the practice squad. I'm sure they would. But the only point of evaluating past decisions is to see if you should have made a different decision given the information you had at the time. And I understand the logic of the Bills player prioritization, given the information they had at the time. Kicking yourself serves no purpose.

I would call it "The Fiasco"

https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/back-surgery-not-ankle-injuries-responsible-for-bills-receiver-jake-kumerows-shortened-season/article_181816c8-9cdd-11ed-bc17-0f9fac7f9425.html#tncms-source=login