Beck Water

It would be fair to say Tyler Matakevich was signed because ST coach Heath Farwell wanted him - though to be fair when he was younger he was a decent conventional LB Taiwan Jones was signed for his ST chops Andre Roberts was signed as a return specialist I'm probably missing a couple, but those are the primary that come to mind.

C'mon man, that wasn't a player-to-player exchange. Would you say that about a different jersey exchange between two athletes?

What part of this was insufficiently clear and how could I express myself in a clearer way?

I just don't think Beane would trade a player because of a tweet. The GM has all the goods - the GPS tracking his speed in practice and games, the specifics of what route he was supposed to run and how he ran it, how often he was open on-time against man. He gets info on what's going on in the locker room. Some of the stuff that's been rumored here - Diggs being chronically late, having a special parking spot, being an asshat to police officers, some stunt he pulled that hurt the team, that in 2022 he ranted at Allen about missing him in games to the point where the WR room was uncomfortable and Allen was fed up and stopped talking to him. I think Diggs may have forced himself out, I just think one small tweet weighs pretty small against everything else that may have gone on and against leaving a gaping hole while taking on $31M dead cap. And yes, I think the tweet was a shot at Josh. In the interview with Dunne if I recall correctly Beane pretty well said Diggs didn't want to be here any more. So yes, he got exactly what he wanted.

Oh, I hope not. Not that I don't think the man deserves his propers. He's done well when called upon. 78% catch % and some of those are routes, not pitches. I just hate a prediction of injuries, so I got to give you the "thumbs down" Sledge was used more in 2022, so I hope Brady has clever ideas about how to use him more *without* injuries. Yeah, I thought so. He hates that we've signed guys primarily for their ST chops, not that we have some "core STers" who are playing on rookie contracts or not much more, and who are developing players in the league, like Dorian Williams and Kingsley Jonathan, or who are budget backups the Bills developed, like Damar Hamlin and Quintin Morris, and have contributed when called upon. The thing is some of the players who get hate, like Siran Neal, actually have specific (albeit limited) roles as rarely-used defensive starters. Neal is our dime DB. He doesn't get a lot of snaps because the Bills have barely played dime. Gilliam is our fullback. He doesn't get a lot of snaps because the Bills have spent most of their time in (1,1) sets and rarely (2,1). So we really have only glimpses of how they play in their primary defensive or offensive role, but the glimpses we've gotten have been pretty effective, actually.

I dunno about "majority of his drops", but I know there were drops on short routes where the ball was a little off but the commentator or film breakdown reaction was "you gotta reel that one in"

I don't think the tweet had anything to do with the Bills making a deal. I think it was a snarky reaction to being informed of the deal. But, that's just my opinion I got nothing to back that up except a believe that Beane is a professional and wouldn't make a decision to throw a man overboard based on a snarky ambiguous tweet. So I think he pulled the trigger, Diggs was informed, and THEN he snarked out the tweet Concur.

He's griping about Mack Hollins. He outright says so in the OP As for core ST'ers (not counting kicker/punter): Of the guys who played the top-10 ST snaps, we still have 1. Reggie Gilliam 84.9% 4. Cam Lewis 74.9% 5. Q Morris 72.6% 6. Dorian Williams 60.7% 7. Taylor Rapp 44.4% 9. Kingsley Jonathan 41.4% Gone are #2 Tyler Matakevich, #3 Siran Neal, #8 Tyrel Dodson, and #10 Trent Sherfield. I don't think OP is really beefing about guys who are "core STers" in the sense of playing a lot of ST snaps. A number of those guys are on rookie contracts, like Dorian Williams, Baylon Spector, or Damar Hamlin. Or, very cheap vet minimum contracts like Kingsley Jonathan and Reggie Morris. OP is beefing about guys who are paid more than vet minimum or rookie scale and who primarily play ST, like Reggie Gilliam ($2.2M) or very slightly, Cam Lewis ($1.48M). And of course now, Mack Hollins ($2.48M) But ya know, an experienced backup by definition is not going to play at starter level at his offensive or defensive position. Lewis is a valuable backup to the Bills because he can come in the game and play boundary corner or nickel. Of course he's a drop off from Taron Johnson or Douglas/Benford, or else he wouldn't be the backup. And the backups have toi play ST, or who else is gonna do it? I'm not sure OP knows what his beef really is.

I'm all for it! Sign You Up!

I think you're asking a good question. There were reports that the Bills were shopping Diggs at some of the events preceding the league NY - Sr Bowl mebbe? There was a tweet from Diggs implying that he expected to be traded just before his salary guaranteed the 5th day of the league New Year in March Bills signed Samuel on March 14th. Bills traded Diggs on April 3rd One theory on the sequence of events is: 1) Bills shop Diggs in early Feb, but get no takers that they feel offer fair compensation for the cap hit they'd have to swallow and the roster hole 2) Bills decide to keep Diggs, draft/sign low tier FA to replace Davis, and make a modest splurge on Curtis Samuel as their slot/everyman WR vs going for an X 3) either something further happens with Diggs, the Texans make a "Zillow make me move" offer of what may be a high 2025 2nd rounder, or both I'd be lying if I said I felt good about the Bills WR rooml

I'll go further than that. Neal played a handful of defensive snaps in 6 regular season games. All 6 were wins, and none were against KC Neal played 3 snaps in the div. round playoff game vs. KC If the OP "2023 was this phenomenon on overdrive in the playoffs, as we had Baylon Spector playing some LB, Siran Neal trying to cover Travis Kelce, Trent Sherfield alligator arms etc etc." wants to blame our division loss on those 3 snaps Neal played, he's really got an uphill climb to make that case. Baylon Spector was inactive for the division round game vs. KC. He played 19 defensive snaps vs. Miami and 17 vs Pitts (both W's). C'mon OP, you can't really complain about a "phenomenon on overdrive in the playoffs" when 1) he played OK during a W 2) he was inactive during the loss Sherfield had 3 targets and caught 1 pass in the KC games, so I guess he could be made into a scapegoat, but then Stefon Diggs had 8 targets and caught 3 passes for 21 whole yards and 2.63 yds per target, so methinks that's laying the blame in the wrong bed raising a grand fuss about Sherfield. We do know Sherfield was playing as much as he did because Gabe Davis went out with a knee injury in Week 18, right? We can find out how good Siran Neal is or isn't as a gunner, twice this season when we play Miami

Not a STer?

Fair points, but the Hopkins and Diggs contract situations are substantively different. The Texans will take on a $16M dead cap for an unsigned player next year. The Titans will take on $9.8M dead cap for an unsigned player next year. They are both "mortgaging the future/kicking the can down the road" contracts. The Bills do have a substantive cap hit for Samuel next year, but Samuel is under contract. You failed to address the other point, that Samuel is a more consistent, higher producing WR than McKenzie, so one would expect to allocate more resources. What do you think is the going rate for a vet #3 receiver who has been consistently productive in the 50+ reception/yr, 600 yd/yr range? It's true he's not a "top tier outside WR". Who was available that you wanted the Bills to sign?

I've seen this number before (maybe from you?) and let it go, but at this point it seems worth correcting. The Bills are NOT putting $8M into the Crowder/McKenzie role in this cap-strapped year. As always when something like an "$8M average" contract is announced, we have to look at the fine print. Curtis Samuel's cap hit for the Bills this year is $3.4M: salary of $1.2M, amortized signing bonus of $1.725M. That doesn't seem excessive, given that he has actually proven on the football field that he can gain yards from the backfield and play outside, two things McKenzie could not. Except for the year he was injured, Samuel has been a pretty reliable 650 yd/season Comparison (both played from 2017-2023; Samuel's total is depressed by including an IR'd year.

Seriously? I'm in the US. Can't say I agree.

There is only one thing to say in response:

Thank you for posting I got to say, it's one of the weirdest things to me - this guy Dunne writes a paywalled story of an interview with Beane and then gets interviewed about his interview for weeks. Like interviewing "news" is enough to make you a desireable interview

If Rodgers goes down and Taylor gets hurt, what are their alternatives?

Beane seems to be making it pretty clear they're counting on Kincaid for Josh to become Greg Olsen to Cam ("I looked at the rules; it's legal to pass to a TE"). And when the Panthers went to the Superbowl with Newton, Olsen was their leading receiver. Behind him they had a 30-yr old Ted Ginn, 33 yr old Jericho Cotchery, and a rookie Devin Funchess. That said, I agree with your overall point that the Bills WR room is made up of insufficient WR parts, and not enough investment has been made there

I doubt it on the "price of keeping quiet" I believe after the initial shock wore off and the season ended, McD probably did drill into the piece, not as a "report card" but in the principle of continuous improvement I do think one issue raised by McD might have been "if you're writing about me, why not ask me for an interview?" to which Dunne's answer would be "I'm not credentialed and have no access". Then McD/Beane might offer to trade some 1:1 access for Dunne agreeing to reach out for their take before writing another such piece. Agree I think this is a key quote: Anyone have any doubts that Beane is talking about Diggs here? Because back-to-back playoffs, he did disappear.

I dunno about Beane holding a grudge. I think it's more along the lines of "fool me once, Shame on You; fool me twice, Shame on Me".

I would go further: the scenario he presented was contradicted by statements inside OBD There were quotes in the article which were directly refuted by current players at the time. For example, one of the most damning quotes was that McDermott didn't have strong personal relationships with players because he's psychologically and mentally incapable of it (or words to that effect). Another said he didn't have a relationship with a "single offensive player" Morse in the press gave an anecdote where in 2020 he had been injured (concussed?) and missed a game, then was a healthy scratch the next week and his starting going forward was in the air. He said he was suffering from anxiety. McDermott called him into his office, and told him, whatever the game decision is, look at who you are as a man and a father. You are so much more than football. And other words of wisdom. He said it was what he needed to hear in the moment and he'd never forget it. Allen has gone to bat for McDermott, saying he talks to him every week and his relationship with McDermott has never been better. One of the players quoted in the article by name, Isaiah McKenzie, who butted heads with McDermott and was benched by McDermott several times, had positive things to say. In one of his "Isaiah McKenzie Show" segments with Dunne, he was asked if he were in trouble, who would be harder to talk with, McDermott or Beane, and he said McDermott, explaining, "talking to McDermott would be like talking to your Father. He'd be like "I raised you better than that!". These are not offensive players who have no relationship with McDermott or descriptions of a man who is "psychologically and mentally incapable" of personal relationships.

I doubt it rankles McDermott that Beane talked to Dunne. In the interview piece someone linked, Dunne actually says he had several meetings with McDermott at one of the pre-draft events - think he said Combine - and "it was really positive" or words to that effect. Dunne sounded a little surprised by that, but I'm not. I think McDermott has probably moved past it, turned around, assessed it calmly, shaken whatever learnings for continuous improvement he can out of it, and let go of the rest. Why wouldn't he? Beane, Josh Allen, Ed Oliver, and others came out 100% as "we got your back, Coach" and then, the team "walked the walk" by winning the next 6 games despite devastating injuries. That served as a giant, living, raspberry to Dunne. McDermott, by other accounts, really does live by the "growth mindset" and "continuous improvement" he preaches. In Tim Graham's article about him, he interviews players and coaches who explained that the day after McDermott was fired by Andy Reid (which had to have been far more devastating than Dunne's article), he was on the phone talking to people about what went wrong and what he should do better going forward. It wouldn't surprise me if one of the topics of discussion between Dunne and McDermott was "if you're writing an article about me, why woudn't you talk to me as part of it?" in which case Dunne's response would be that since leaving TBN then Bleacher Report to go out on his own, he isn't credentialed by the Bills and has been denied access. That would set the stage for Beane and McDermott to gain some influence over the narrative by promising him an interview or interviews in exchange for Dunne talking to them about future articles.

I don't think it's an "either/or" on Samuel vs. "outside WR". They needed to replace Cole Beasley; Crowder/McKenzie were not adequate in 2022. And, they knew Gabe Davis had priced himself out of what they were able/willing to pay, so they needed to replace him too. We needed Samuel, and we needed someone with Davis skillset, while we had Diggs on the team. Once we traded him, we needed all 3. Time will tell

Not really, or at best "hard to tell" Crowder was injured in Game 4 (Ravens) We were "bombs away" against the Steelers, but that was because it was working. Next up, KC, which was a masterpiece of passing dissection. The Packers game was weird. In the 2nd half, Allen behaved as though it was his destiny to throw long bombs to covered receivers, and the ball did not appear to be going where he wanted it to go - I don't believe he was trying to dirt that Alexander pick. He may have been concussed, or he may have gotten an initial hit on part of his throwing apparatus - there was a rumor he'd injured something Then we have the Jets game, where he injured his UCL. So you basically have a 3-ish game sample size, in one of which the short/intermediate game was very much alive. I agree with you that was probably the high-level plan. I think the end of the season and playoffs may have shifted the balance some - pretty clear Josh and Diggs were NOT on the same page, Diggs was not productive in the playoff and for a team that keeps falling short in the playoffs "are you productive in the playoffs?" seems a reasonable metric. I think @BarleyNY posted that there were rumors the Bills were shopping Diggs at the Sr Bowl/Combine, but not getting the return they wanted. One of the pundits who is generally pretty well connected said that the Diggs trade was like "Make Me Move!" on Zillow - at that point, the Bills had decided they weren't going to get the return they wanted and they'd go through another season with him, but they'd given Diggs agent permission to seek a trade acceptable to the Bills, and the Texans came up with a 2nd rounder albeit next years.