Beck Water

It's not a bad thing, but when a guy is coming off an $8 AAV contract and a good year where he was the #2 receiver, if he can't get a good contract he'll at least want to go somewhere where he thinks he can get a good target share. From the Bills side, I'd like to see us go after a talented younger guy OR a proven vet - not a 29 year old Never-Was Who is begging for Zay Jones?

Oh, great, we now have the next useless metric to go along with the QB 300 yd passing game (remember when Allen sucked after we went to the playoffs in 2019 because he hadn't had one)? Stefon Diggs didn't have a 1000 yd season until his 4th season in Minny. He was still a good, proven player after his rookie year, even though he only had 720 yds or 849 yds. Cole Beasley in his 11 year NFL career had 0 1000 yd receiving seasons Now I might understand what you might be getting at. We want to see Curtis Samuel surpass his previous 851 yd best season, and not have the 650-ish he had the last 2 years. We want to see Shakir surpass the 39 receptions and 611 yds he had last year. We need Kincaid to surpass his 73 reception, 673 yd rookie year. We need production from Coleman in his rookie year. And while we're at it, would be nice if Knox would return to his 50-ish receptions for 500-ish yards of '21 and '22 instead of the <200 yds we got from him last year. We need Cook to keep up his contributions of 400-ish yards or step up a bit. 'Cuz if we get 600 yds from Coleman and 2023-ish production from everyone else, we're gonna be looking at a ~3,100 yd passing year. On the other hand, if Coleman manages 600 yds and the rest somehow manage an extra 900 yds between the 5 of them (like 180 yds apiece) then we'll be good.

This is great, thank you for putting this together. Question: any particular reason you broke it down as 8 games and 9 games? Reason I ask is that 'last 9 games' includes 2 games with Dorsey still as OC. That might matter - I put this elsewhere, but when I looked at rush % and pass % in games where Brady was OC vs games where Dorsey was OC, the difference was even more significant than you note. The Bills had an overall 58%/42% pass/rush split under Dorsey. They shifted to a 48%/52% pass/rush split under Brady. A lot of that, unfortunately, was rush attempts for Josh Allen - I make it 9.2 attempts/ game including playoffs with a Dorsey/Brady split. I really don't think we want to rely on Josh Allen as the best rusher on the team. Anyway I think looking at it as Dorsey vs Brady makes some of the differences you noted more stark. And yeah, we don't know how much was what Brady would like to do, and how much is "OK, these are the chess pieces still on my board, these are their capabilities, what can I do to win now?"

So we drafted Ray Davis at pick 128 in the 4th. There were 3 WR drafted pretty promptly in the 4th - 102, 110, 113. Moving up 15-26 slots is A Lot, not just in terms of draft picks - but teams don't like to give up that much freedom of choice unless the trading team makes it very juicy for them. It may well be we tried to trade up, and didn't find a deal we were OK with. The next receiver drafted, at 135, was drafted 22 slots later, suggesting teams may have perceived a talent difference. Beane said in his presser that the team's evaluation of the WR we drafted and signed last year had a role in not drafting a WR in the late rounds. It may be that they like Shorter, Shavers, Thompson, and Hamler better as prospects than anyone within reach of our picks, IDK.

"If I get a call from Josh in the off season, it's usually him seeing some highlight, running into somebody, throwing with somebody, just something to ask me what I think about somebody, he called me at the Senior Bowl to ask what I think about a couple of guys there. He's been in the building the last couple of weeks since the off season program has started. We did give him some guys, we said "sit back there with the coaches, y'all watch them together and talk about how you'd use 'em, I'd like to hear what you see. He liked a lot of the guys, he really did, but Keon was one, I know he liked him a lot." Said Josh Facetimed him Friday at home and asked what he thought, and he (Beane) said "barring someone blowing me away, I'm going to take Keon" and he was pretty pumped." A lot to unpack there; 1) Confirms what I caught out of Josh's OTA presser, he did watch film cut ups on selected WR (and new information, with the coaches) 2) Kind of sounded to me as though Beane intended to take Keon at Pick 28 and just squeezed as much extra draft capitol as he could first 3) "throwing with somebody" But Josh doesn't throw or work out in the off season prior to OTAs because, because, I read it here on TBD!

Nah. It was about 10-15 guys (maybe 11 or 12 after eliminating some sock puppets) who complained for weeks. The majority of the board complained vehemently in 2-6 posts, got it out of their system in 3 days, then said "Oh well, He's a Bill now so we'll hope for the best!"

I see no reason it isn't plausible. I think historically, the #33 and #34 picks are very popular trade targets, being that the talent pool usually isn't very different between the top of the 2nd and the bottom of the 1st. And, the Bills had just been giving off smoke signals "we're in the market for more picks or to move up with what we have" so why wouldn't 5 teams test the waters?

I agree with the overall thrust of your post, but in his OTA presser Josh said something to the effect of he was "going down to watch film of every catch". Whether coaches or scouts were there, or how many receivers he watched, I don't know. It's probably something along the lines of 240 targets per dude, maybe 20 seconds per target - probably 90 minutes per dude, I could see Josh getting through 4-5 guys in a week easily while working out at OTAs and hanging out with the team. It just bothers me because I feel people partially quote (which in meaning, becomes a mis-quote) Josh a lot here and then fluff it up into a BFD, not saying that's what you do or are doing here, just explaining why I'm kind of picking a nit. *********************** Following this up with: in his appearance on (I think) Pat Macafee podcast - it's linked elsewhere - Beane explicitly said that they gave Josh a group of guys and told him to sit with the coaches and watch their tape together and discuss them and how they would use them.

LOL I've been trying to recall just what Josh said about Dorsey as OC when he was promoted, and it really was pretty much that positive. There was stuff about "my career changed when he walked into the building" and such like. Very positive. The thing is it didn't stay that way long, it became "I have to see the field the same way he does as OC" which in hindsight, sounds like struggling. Those are the 4 that were at or around our original pick, but I honestly don't think Worthy was on our board in the late 1st/early 2nd at all. I also think if the Bills had Legette on there it must have been significantly lower, because Carolina was NOT subtle about telegraphing their Legette Love.

I was thinking more move in with Shakir and work with Eric Moulds (gloveless), though that place Diggs used to train would also be good. I forget the name, but their motto was something like "won't get you stronger, won't get you faster, will get you open." Seriously, Shakir had a huge jump in his catch % from 50% to 87% last season, and in that "Embedded" piece he credits working off-season with Eric Moulds, bare-handed. He said that working bare handed forces you to focus on refining your catching technique, then adding gloves takes it to another level. I'm not saying that Coleman needs to improve his catch rate, but Diggs used to say that Josh's passes didn't hurt "if you catch them properly"

I mean, Josh may have said he wanted Coleman, but it was likely in some context - "we predict these 3 guys will go in the top 10 and we're not going to mortgage this draft and the next to move up there, even if we could which is not certain. We think these 6-7 guys will be within reach of our #28 pick, do you have a take?" I doubt Allen's ranking would move the Bills draft board, but if there were 2 guys they were close on it might have influenced.

Tomorrow at 4 pm is the deadline for FA signings to count in the 2025 comp pick formula, so nobody significant being signed before 4 pm tomorrow. If there's a guy out there Beane wants to sign, he can make some cap moves and do it, though. As far as Zay Jones, though, Zay Jones had a $10.7 cap hit this season, of which $7.5 M was new money (salary and workout bonus). That slots him in at Mike Williams/Adam Thielen/TiktokBoi range. Williams has been a consistant 70-ish YPG guy his last 3 years. Thielen, fell off a little in 2022 Minny but other than that, very consistant 55-60+ YPG guy since 2016 (3rd year). Jones has hit 50+ ypg once in his career, 2022, behind Christian Kirk. He's gonna want to wait a minute and see if someone else will pay him the way Jax did, or close, and I don't think he's got that ROI for that. As far as the Bills, to that. We're better off hoping for another 40 ypg season from Mack Hollins like he had with an OK QB, Carr, throwing to him in Vegas (but behind Devante Adams). Hollins seems to be a unique (and entertaining) guy with a great work ethic, which I think is more than you can count on Zay Jones to be.

I think we do need other receivers, yes. It's a position at which injuries are common. So far Shakir has been durable, but he's also not yet seen more than 50% of the snaps. Samuel has been durable the last couple years but again, last year ~50% of the snaps. Remember 2022 where the plan going into the season was evidently to platoon Crowder and McKenzie? Then Crowder broke his leg, and it was all up to McKenzie. That meant when Davis got dinged, we had Jake Kumerow, Isaiah Hodgins, and Tanner Gentry seeing playing time, and after we lost Isaiah Hodgins to an injury-crunch at DB waiver move and Kumerow went down, we were hauling Brown and Beas off the sofa (our WR equivalent of bringing in Klein). So yes, I agree with you that last year's bottom-of-roster WR and Cephus are competing for #5 and possibly #6 on the roster, but the quality of those guys can really make or break a season - just like the quality of the LB at the bottom of the depth chart. And I'd really like an upgrade there. I'd like to see Shakir-Coleman-Samuel-better receiver-Hollins-better receiver, albeit it's possible we only keep 5 WR on the roster and more TE depending upon what kind of offense Brady wants to run, in which case yeah, #6 is gonna have to be a guy we can keep on the practice squad. But we still need one more guy, and not persuaded Quintez Cephus is The One rather than a chap competing for #6 with the rest of them. I'm also not persuaded that Beane sees it that way, in which case Shades of 2019

I'm on record as agreeing that we did not do enough at WR. I'm a little puzzled as how you see us having a realistic bite at Thomas, who was drafted at 23? We'd have had to go up at least 6 slots - would Philly have been willing? Detroit took a DB at 24 and Baltimore at 30 (so might have hopped up). Then there's the cost - in Beane's 2 recent 1st round trades, it cost him a 4th rounder to move up 2 spots. So what would we have had to pay for 6? The trade value chart suggests maybe a 3rd round pick - we didn't have a 3rd round pick. Our 2nd round pick, and maybe get a late 3rd or early 4th as change? I don't know if that's realistic. And of course, there's the question of whether Thomas juice would have been worth that squeeze - sometimes when there are 2 or 3 really strong prospects, the 4th choice gets a bit of a "halo effect" bump-up (Kadarius Toney or Jameson Williams, anyone?) The bottom line is, the Bills didn't have Mitchell or Franklin high on their board, or maybe on their board at all. We could have taken Leggette or McConkey sure, but that's instead of Coleman, not a double dip - and if we'd gone up for Thomas, we would have had probably no 2nd round pick so we're still not double dipping. So who is our realistic double, that was apparently on our board? Tez Walker we could have had - but not if we stayed pat in the 1st or traded up, because we wouldn't have had our 3rd rounder. It's possible Beane tried to trade up in the 4th using some 5th round picks, and possible the reportedly "thin" draft left other GMs disinclined to trade. And are we really persuaded, the 4th round talent in this draft is so very much better than last year, or next year? I think there were guys Beane could have drafted in the later rounds, but I think it's a reasonable question if the late round talent was truly significantly better than previous years? I understand your points, but at the same time it somewhat seems to me more like a different way of saying "Beane didn't trade up the way we wanted, or draft the guys we thought he should draft" vs. mapping out a path where Beane could realistically have traded up or kept our 1st round pick to draft one of those guys, AND made a double-dip that was early enough to be part of the clearly superior part of the WR talent.

I agree with questioning the concept that this WR class is a WR draft to end all drafts. Two parts to that: 1) are the WR really all that and a bag of chips at the NFL level? Experience suggests "maybe not" 2) is the class talent really something that won't be seen for years? Example: 2018 was said to be one of the most talented QB classes in years. 5 QB were drafted in the 1st round. 2 were offered 2nd contracts, with a 3rd who has shown some ability to play. 2020, which seemed to have less fanfare, had 4 QB drafted in the 1st round and 1 in the second - of whom all 5 are still starting in the league and have shown the ability to play well, 2 having played in (and lost) the Superbowl. Anyway, 2020 was a great year for WR with 6 drafted in the 1st, 2 more at the start of the 2nd; of those 7, the 1st and the 4th drafted didn't work out and the 2nd is only OK, maybe hampered by his QB. 2021 saw 5 drafted in the 1st, top 3 look great (drafted 5,6, and 10 overall) but so does some guy drafted midway thru the 4th. 2022 saw 6 drafted in the 1st plus another at the top of the 2nd. Top 3 look great, but so does some guy drafted at #52, halfway through the 2nd. It just seems as though pretty deep talented WR drafts are coming along pretty regularly, and that drafts where one position is super-hyped may not wind up producing the expected number of successful NFL players.

Good post. The bottom line is Beane has a mixed track record with the out come of these kind of statements (or with just putting players who have been in a secondary role, into the lineup). He made comments about Cody Ford being hampered by injuries and "his best football is ahead of him"; next training camp, Ford was traded away. Nothing was said, but obviously Davis and McKenzie were expected to step up at WR in 2022; that didn't work out very well. In contrast, MLB worked out splendidly and there have been some other instances - I think Beane expressing confidence in Damar after Hyde went down, and Damar played decently enough "until". FWIW, I started a thread on this after Beane made a comment about "sometimes the answer is already on the roster" with a reference to last year's MLB situation. Basically my conclusion is pretty much the same as yours, except I included Bryan Thompson, an UDFA last season who quietly spent last season on the PS, just as Shavers did. I do think KJ Hamler has a better set of physical tools to start with than Isabella did - longer arms, bigger hands, similar size and speed - but I think the real Achilles heel for both of them is lack of ball-tracking skills and hands. And when a guy has been injured as repeatedly in different body parts (hammy, ACL, pec, pericarditis), you kind of got to wonder if his body is just not made to hold up to football. I think it's notable that of the Isabella/Shorter/Shavers/Thompson pack, Isabella is the only one who got the call and spent time on the active roster last season. As far as Coleman mentioning Hamler, Hamler attended IMG for HS and trained at EXOS pre-draft - so perhaps they encountered each other training in Florida?

Not a surprise

Well....we had a solid WR room in 2020 and made reasonable changes in 2021, but since then, you're not wrong. Last two seasons, we have counted on WR to step it up who didn't or couldn't. I don't feel good about our WR room at all, myself. But the huge unknown (to me anyway) is just what DOES Joe Brady want our offense to look like? Because judging by personnel, he clearly has something different in mind than Daboll did or Dorsey did.

Wouldn't they want to try Waffle House? They serve pork chops at Waffle House, did you know that?

I think they must appeal to a certain demographic, by which I mean the guys who grew up watching Bradshaw as a QB and admiring Jimmy Johnson as a coach. Fox wants to stick with that demographic, while CBS wants to update from Phil Simms and Boomer Esiason.

I agree with this. I think it is obvious that in Diggs, at the least, we had a guy who wanted to win a Superbowl and felt entitled to point fingers everywhere but at the guy he sees in the mirror for the causes the Bills have fallen short 3 years running. There have been a number of vets who I believe, signed with the Bills because they wanted a ring and thought they could ride the Bills to get there. After a couple of seasons, that stales. Vet leadership who from all appearances have great attitudes like Poyer and Hyde, had gotten old and the Bills needed to cut the cord and move on. So a "culture reset" is needed. It's not that we expect a 3rd round DLman to step up and become a leader in the DL room. That's expected of Da'Quan Jones and Ed Oliver. We're not expecting Bishop to necessarily be the DB "field general" his rookie year, that's expected of Edwards. But we're bringing in guys who have that sense of personal responsibility and ability to lead, as our "leaders in training" during this reset. To me, Coleman 100% fits Beane's draft profile for the first rounds. Drafting in the bottom of the 1st, he likes to take a high ceiling/low floor prospect. That's his Jam. I think this was true of Allen, true of Tre'maine Edmunds, true of Rousseau with his minimal collage experience, true of Elam, and true of Coleman. (I could make an argument it was true of Kincaid, as well). The downside is that sometimes these guys take a year or two to start contributing according to their potential. So it's especially a risk when we've moved out of the 1st so we don't have that cost-controlled 5th year on Coleman. We just have to hope that Coleman follows the Edmunds and Kincaid trajectory where he's an immediate starter and contributor even if he doesn't hit his full potential for a season or two, and not the Rousseau or (shudder) Elam trajectory. Whether or not, clearly Beane thought that risk was manageable in favor of moving up in the 5th McDermott said something once about the position coaches not liking to start rookies because it's more work for them to get the rookies prepared and ready to go; it's more comfortable to start a vet who knows his assignments and correctly interprets what he sees (this was 2020, talking about Ed Oliver, I believe). We've had some "churn" at the coaching assistants, and IMO part of that churn is seeking to move towards guys who are more willing to coach up the younger players and ride with them earlier in the season, in the hopes that they'll have had their growing pains and be ready to ride at the end. I can see both perspectives, but there's a point that if you ride with a vet who is in some ways a "better" player earlier in the season AND more likely to not make it through a full season, you then take a double-hit when you bring in a rookie. If you ride with a rookie and make up your mind to tolerate and correct some rookie mistakes, they're hopefully a better player by the last 3rd of the season AND if they're injured, the vet will be more able to come in with less learning curve. Yeah, I think people are getting it a bit mixed. They're wanting 2 WR because they wanted Coleman and, say, McConkey or maybe Legette and Coleman. Well, that was Either Or Not Both, so then folks are just salty that the Bills talent evaluation and theirs differ. People are mad that the Bills picked Coleman instead of Worthy, Pearsall, Legette, or McConkey. That's just one where time will tell; Beane has shown himself way smarter than a TBD draft afficionado at times. Other times he's shown himself "out" vs the guys TBD would have picked. There are some wild cards at play such as injuries - would Cody Ford have succeeded as a 2nd round pick if he hadn't been injured so much and tried so hard to play through it? Can't use a time machine to find out. Clearly the Bills could have taken Franklin instead of Carter at the bottom of the 3rd, but also clearly, he's a guy where 32 talent evaluators around the league differed significantly from the pundits who graded him as a top-10 WR and a 2nd round or top 50 player. The Bills seemed to want no part of him or of Mitchell. So then what we're talking about is whether there was a guy within reach from the 4th round on with whom we should have double-dipped. We're not talking "the Bills didn't take BTJ and Legette or Worthy. We're talking the Bills didn't take one of the guys in reach at the bottom of the 1st/top of the 2nd AND a guy in the late rounds, and while yes, this draft's WR quality is good, that doesn't mean that the guys drafted in the 5th are automagically better than the guys we drafted or signed last season. That's the bottom line: whether they're right or wrong, the Bills like someone in the Shorter/Shavers/Hamler/Thompson/Isabella group and feel they have a better shot to contribute this season, better than they like Anthony Gould, Ainais Smith, or Jamari Thrash. I will admit Beane pisses me off at times when he talks as though the only way the Bills could have gotten a top WR like Ja'Marr Chase is to "suck that bad", when plainly, there were guys within reach of our original draft slot who have proven to be top WR.

I think the Bills feel the Cole Beasley role may be over-represented on the current roster with Khalil Shakir and the FA acquisition of Curtis Samuel (not that these guys are playing at Cole's level at present, but then, likely neither would McConkey) It's also notable that one reason Beasley and Josh had that success in 2020 was that Brown was a vertical threat and Diggs fast enough to also stretch the field. The weakness of that group, was guys who were strong enough to out-play physical coverage and to challenge for 50-50 balls. I think this is it. In our most recent playoff losses, our WR have 100% been out-physicaled by "sticky" coverage. I think the Bills are trying to become a more physical, powerful team offensively. Whether they've got the right guys for that, time will tell but I can't fault the logic that it's insanity to try the same thing and expect different results, therefore the Bills are going for some different qualities in their player personnel. Aside, but what's super-frustrating to me is after the Zebras allowed KC to hold and shove and mug our WR all game in the AFCCG, the Superbowl crew of Zebras flagged the hell out of KC's secondary for the same behavior, helping Tampa to the win.

OK, that's a careful and fair breakdown. I think you missed Richard Gouraige, whom the Bills carried on the practice squad all season and signed to a futures contract at OT, that's a nit. I also can't argue that it's an uphill battle for an UDFA to break camp on the 53, because it's I think there are 2 places where I differ. First, I don't view David Edwards position at LG as "locked in", nor do I view Connor McGovern as "locked in" at C. In fact, I'm highly nervous about the Connor McGovern Experiment at C. I think he had something like 13 games at C as a college sophomore, and maybe 1 start at C in the NFL? Doesn't mean he can't play C, but he's highly inexperienced and his track record is coaches who see him play C go "Next!". McGovern is a bit shorter, maybe 15 lbs heavier than Morse, came into the league with a rep as a strong run blocker, more uneven in pass pro. I think we saw that at times last season. I think he's got the inside track, but is far from a lock. It wouldn't bother me to keep 3 other guys who can play C on the roster. I have different trepidation about David Edwards as a starter. He can play, but he's also got a very nervous-making concussion history, such that the Rams moved on from him after he started 45 games with them. If an OLman is "all that", teams usually stick with them for years but the Rams let him go. That suggests to me either 1) they viewed him as a player they could and should upgrade on skill OR 2) they saw his concussion as particularly worrisome. Or Both. I agree he has an "inside track" because OL coaches tend to favor "their guys" who can player/coach their technique (one reason Bills nabbed him from LA), but we're in year 3 now with Kromer. The starters now should be "his guys". In the past, the Bills have also valued IOL backups who can play across, sometimes at the expense of a guy who has potential to be significantly better at one position (see Teller, Wyatt vs Bates, Ryan). Edwards did play RG his rookie season, but never C AFAIK. Of course, there are a lot of relevant details here neither of us have access to, I'm just laying out why I view both McGovern as subject to being moved back to LG, and Edwards as being susceptible to upgrade. I don't know how the Bills feel about Alec Anderson - they obviously felt he was better than the guys they released. But while they carried him all year, he didn't make it onto the roster for one tiny snap, not on ST, not as a 6th OL. Of course we were very lucky with our OL health last season, but I don't see him being as much of a "sure bet" as you do. Likewise, while the Bills clearly liked Van Demark better than the guys they released to make room for him, the Bills historically favor a swing tackle as their backup OT and I recall some chatter that Van Demark was not "getting it" at RT. The major reason why I feel the OL may not be quite as "locked in" as you see it has to do with scheme. What exactly does Joe Brady want this offense to be? I don't know, do you? Last year, we went into the season with Dorsey as OC and with an "athletic" type center who excels in a pin-and-pull style run game, and presumably a portfolio of run plays suited to our OL personnel. But with Joe Brady now locked down as OC, I believe there are signs we want to move towards a more power-focused run game. One of them being to release Morse and go with Connor McGovern as the presumptive C. McGovern is a bit shorter, maybe 15 lbs heavier, and came into the league with a rep as a strong run blocker, more uneven in pass pro. I think we saw that at times last season. Will he do better in pass sets as a C vs LG? Not enough NFL experience at C to tell. What exactly does Joe Brady want our offense to look like? In the games where he was OC, we had a huge shift in our Run/Pass balance. We were 58% pass/42% run under Dorsey and 48% pass/52% run under Brady. The big question: Why? Was it because between Allen's shoulder sprain and whatever was up with Diggs, we didn't have the horses to carry off the pass game he wanted so he did what it took to win? Was it because, despite having a certified Beast of a passing QB under C, McDermott really wants a run first offense in his heart of hearts? If we know what Brady wants the offense to look like, then we can make a guess about whether the 4 returning guys plus Edwards really have a sweet lock on the starts and whether Anderson and Van Demark really have a strong leg up on the backup roles.

And Van Demark was actually initially signed by the Colts - but both came over to the Bills prior to their rookie year That's why I count them as UDFA who made the roster; you can count differently, no worries

What would that look like to you?