Beck Water

I don't _fault_ Beane in the sense of thinking it was a stupid deal to sign Von Miller. After all, if Miller stayed healthy and we won a championship, we'd all be lauding Beane for it. It was a risky deal because of Miller's age, but statistically apparently muscle injuries are more common in older players while ligament injuries are evenly distributed. So Miller's ACL was rotten luck. On the other hand, you have to judge whether a deal is a good one or a bad one based upon how it works out, right? And the fact is, signing Miller has been a very poor ROI for the Bills and is one of the reasons we're in Cap Purgatory. If Fat Kelvin had returned to his 2016 form and had 63 receptions for 941 yds, we'd judge that 3rd round pick we gave up for him much more kindly. Instead he checked out once he got his 5th year guaranteed pay, so it was a poor ROI.

Yeah, Coleman was a trade - 7th round pick. He just particularly pissed me off because the Bills, in a cap crunch, assumed a $3.5M guaranteed salary for a guy they kept through training camp cut before the regular season. They got a bit of relief when he signed with the Giants, but still - they took on $3M dead cap for a guy who never played a snap. And this was in a year where our WR corps was Zay Jones, Robert Foster, and Kelvin Benjamin; our OL was atrocious; and Beane was pleading "no money" as a reason for not doing better (he acknowledged after the season that he could have done more, at least on OL). There've been articles about McDermott seeking learnings after he was fired as the Eagles DC, and taking to heart the message "you got to make sure players are bought in", especially on DL. McDermott is always talking about how "DT is the most selfless position". It seems like a reasonable connect-the-dots that McDermott became gun-shy about bringing in DLmen who might not "buy in" to his particular "selfless" philosophy of DL usage in a league where pay is performance-driven and statistics are one of the key performance metrics (sacks, TFL, QB knockdowns and hurries). I think Beane has control over the 53 and it's not just on paper, but I think McDermott pushed for preference given to "known quantities" on DL and it took the total disintegration of Lotulelei's effort to persuade McD that he had to let go of that a bit.

I don't wanna make excuses for Rodgers, but apparently he broke the thumb on his throwing hand in Week 5 The team had 7 losses and 1 win Week 5 and following So, did the loss of Adams affect Rodgers, almost certainly. The Packers invested a 3rd round 2022 pick, a 2nd round 2023 pick, and a 5th round 2023 pick at WR, and gave up on the 2022 guy partway through the 2023 season. They didn't sign any FA of note, either. But injuries and deteriorating skill likely played a role as well.

Nice breakdown. Ooh, I forgot about Tyler Kroft. We paid him $10M which is certainly an over-pay for what we got, but he did play. WR I think you got to factor in gimondulous whiffs like Corey Coleman and "gee, I just paid 3.5x more for less" whiffs like swapping out McKenzie for Deonte Harty. RB similar swapping Nyheim Hines for Zack Moss - the Colts got the better production end of that one, and DL I have to note that Beane has been hampered by McDermott's insistence on "selfless" guys who "buy in". It led to our keeping duds like Star Lotulelei, Vernon Butler, and Mario Addison for far too long.

It's not a debate. A debate is something like when @Shaw66 and I disagree about whether swiss-Army-knife WR are the wave of the NFL future vs more specialized boundary/X and slot receivers. We each have points on our side and we lay them out. The problem is that you brought it up as "He used to work on his craft more than he did the last couple years. He’s getting back to that." and attributed that to Josh Allen's own words. That's wrong. Correct quote, but that's not saying "work on his craft" less. That's saying he doesn't work out 4x a week from January 21 (Division round) to April 15 (start of OTAs). And he's saying he still throws and works out, just not as intensely, 4x a week. There are other aspects for a QB of working on their craft - watching film, getting in the playbook, etc. He may be doing that less, more, or the same - he didn't go into that. I don't think he's "getting back to that" ie working out 4x a week in Feb/March. What he's said is that he's specifically working this off-season on tweaking his mechanics because with the shoulder and elbow injury, they got off. And it's not clear to me when this work started. Might have started in Feb or March, might have started after Phase I OTAs. It matters to me because in the thread you alluded to we had all sorts of people extrapolating and generalizing from a few words (which they mis-quoted in some instances) to diss on Allen.

I agree but, I will grant that McDaniel (despite my initial impressions) appears to be a decent football coach

There's a whole 'nother discussion about how the "bloated and non-performing" Whaley era differed. My bottom line: QB. Second place: Only 1 HC, not needing to re-make the roster. I chose B, but it would really be B+ or A-. I would give Beane a top-10 GM and he's certainly put us in position to win, but his Big Buck "Freakazoid" spends or contract extensions haven't provided good ROI. In 2 of 3 cases, that's been due to injury, so not entirely predictable, but the fact is, he swung and missed with Tre' White, Von Miller, and then for whatever reason Diggs and that left us with a "bloated" cap with 3 guys who weren't performing (2 due to injury, 1 due to whatever) Best pick up of the draft? This may be an outlier choice, I would have to say Taron Johnson. If he has another strong year, can make a good case for Terrel Bernard. I want to say Dalton Kincaid and James Cook, but, Too Soon. Biggest miss? Tie between Cody Ford and Boogie Basham. In general, I feel that Beane has gotten better value in later rounds of the draft than first 2 rounds. Free agency - I guess Beane can't take credit for Poyer and Hyde. Gonna go with Mitch Morse. People don't remember the Bad Old Days with Russell Bodine at Center. Morse signed in 2019 and stabilized the C position for Allen for 5 seasons. Solid. Runner up: Cole Beasley. Biggest miss: Von Miller, so far. He gave us 11 good games and 8 sacks in 2022 and that's it for 2 seasons so far. That's not a lot of ROI for $120M ($51M guaranteed). So far, he's been paid $35M. That's like $49k a snap. Not good value.

So it was pretty clear initially that Dorsey was trying to NOT use Josh as a running weapon as much early in the season. So more focus on hands up could be part of that. But I'm wondering if @Buffalo716 comments about Josh having reverted to a more elongated throwing motion has something to do with that. It gives the CB more time to react to the throw.

You may well be correct, but: memo to journalist, don't use words if you don't know what they mean, or how to use them in a sentence. That's an egregious gaffe

The talk is not particularly novel or insightful, but I found this interesting for the extra footage of the various receivers.

Well, Alex Brasky put himself as the author - he's been on one of his gigs (Batavia) since 2018. 6 years seems long enough to grasp English, starting as a native speaker......Dunno, maybe he used AI

Bass-turd We're carrying a $7.3M dead cap hit if we cut him and move on, too psychotherapist, no; sports psychologist, yes.

I'm saying that you are putting words into Josh's mouth that he did not say on the Bussin with the Boys podcast You are interpreting what he said to fit your narrative. Then when someone calls you out on it, you're all "oh, let's not go back into this" You can not find a quote from that podcast where Josh says that. He said things that you interpret that way, like that he basically used to start working out like OTAs just a couple weeks after the season and now he doesn't do that. But working out isn't the only way a QB "works on his craft", nor has Josh in any way said "he's getting back to that" (eg, starting to work out immediately after the season like OTA). I'm all for "let's not get back into that", but then, don't get back into it; don't put out your interpretation, claim it's what Josh said, and then tell everyone else not to get into it. In the thread you referenced, I actually went through and provided a complete transcript of what Josh actually said. He never said "I used to work on my craft more than I did the last couple years".

Me neither, Shakir is 6'0. What does he call Isabella and Hamler, dwarves? midgets?

Did not participate today, but seen out walking around. Easy to fear the worst from a non-contact injury

Well, first of all, like Josh Allen said, we have 3 months before they play football for real. So I wouldn't get too riled up. Second, it's really hard to tell from limited reports what's going on For example, here's a glimpse of Coleman: So, growing pains, some good some bad.

So what about Shakir? Is he OK?

I wish Cook would go work with the "eye training" guy Knox worked with or whatever

In general, Damar did not show out well in the games Poyer missed and he was playing with Jaquan Johnson. That'd be the first Miami game, the Pittsburgh game (which didn't matter, blowout) and the first Jets game which also featured Terrel Bernard trying to play for Milano (spoiler: went badly). And of course, the Cincy playoff game where Poyer went out and our safeties were...Dean Marlow and Jaquan Johnson. Johnson was pretty well out of football last season, BTW. Was cut by the Raiders, out of football until he was brought in by Tampa Bay for a brief PS stint in Nov (by brief, I mean like, a week)

Like I said, if you don't want to go back into it, don't go back into it, but don't mis-reference and mis-quote and then expect to not go back into it.

Yeah, in the show where they were talking about the Diggs trade, Emmanuel Acho talked about "freakazoids", that every team needs to have at least 3 players who are clearly above the general talent level, to win He commented that San Francisco has about 6. The fumbled snap? Yeah, Allen just would not be denied with defenders ripping at the ball so hard the were literally picking Allen up off the ground. I think that play turned the game.

It can if the ligament is completely torn, but if it's not completely torn rest will heal it. IIRC Carson Palmer had this injury and "rest" was the cure. Allen tried PRP injections and "keep playing" https://www.si.com/nfl/bills/news/buffalo-bills-quarterback-josh-allen-elbow-injury-surgery-offseason-mvp-patrick-mahomes-super-bowl https://www.nfl.com/news/bills-qb-josh-allen-won-t-need-elbow-surgery-on-track-for-full-recovery-by-2023- If you don't want to go back into it, then don't mis-reference and mis-represent what Allen actually said on that Bussin' with the Boys podcast.

https://www.thedailynewsonline.com/sports/shakir-leaves-practice-field-isabella-shines-at-bills-mandatory-minicamp-tuesday/article_2b62f326-2826-11ef-8c15-6b66e1afa2f0.html Who Dat Brasky calling "diminutive"? I mean he's not 6'4", but he's 6'0", same height as Diggs was. If Shakir is "diminutive", what do you call Andy Isabella or KJ Hamler? https://www.si.com/nfl/bills/news/buffalo-minicamp-khalil-shakir-lengthy-injury-list-rv3

We're mostly just busting your balls saying "it's just you" What I meant by "why is this even a question?" is 1) Of course some arguments drag on ad nauseum 2) Think a minute about the question "why are people here, posting on this board?" -Some come here to share knowledge/info which feeds the "Silent Majority" who come here for information or football discussion. But left to that, it's not enough to sustain an active bulletin board, especially off-season. And it's frustrating sometimes: one can write a thoughtful and well-sourced little screed and it gets a bunch of views and maybe 4 responses, because there's nothing outrageous in it to spark disagreement and spur others to respond. -Some come here to vent their Buffalo Bills frustration. These come in 2 classes: like to try to discuss semi-knowledgeably and just like to vent, "old man shouts at cloud" 3) Think for a minute about the psychology of posting on a bulletin board. It's fundamentally a bit LAMP-y, "Performative Art" if you will. Some like to perform by sharing info or trying to discuss semi-knowledgeably and civilly. Some like to perform by debating endlessly and get that out of their system online, maybe as a change from a life of being "best behaved" at work and "letting go of the small stuff" at home.. But some like to perform by trying to "play off" others, either reasonably politely because that's who they are on and off bulletin boards, some with a nasty edge and rolling into personal insults easily especially whenever they're well-refuted. Partly that's because of the well-established psychology of online communities, where people get a chance to act in a way they probably wouldn't IRL with no or minimal consequence (at worst, the need to create a new account). We have people who bluster and sling insults around and collect what they believe to be cutting personal attacks (based on minimal evidence), who probably IRL pet kittens and are gentle to puppy dogs and even treat people decently, but from the safety of a keyboard and screen they feel empowered to "unleash their inner #######". Then there are people who are flat-out crazy, like they just can't help themselves. I was puzzled by this in my previous life here, until someone pointed out to me that ~2% of the population has serious psychopathologies, so I'm gonna meet that percentage here.

We should never have traded Lamonica