JohnNord

All of this makes a lot of sense. But when you look at the return from the first and second round picks over the years it makes you wonder if the Bills take a different approach and swings for someone who step in and contribute rather than players like Rosseau and Elam who were more raw talents with a lot of upside

He good. Not as good as his contract

It’s mind-boggling how people here are talking like he’s still Cole Beasley during his All-Pro season from 2020! Are we sure he’s a better slot than Shakir or Harty? You are spot on about his decline physically toward the end of the 2021 season. His receptions and yards per reception all dropped. The lack of interest in him during most of the 2022 season is an indicator of how teams view him. He still is smart and can find openings but lack of explosiveness make it harder to get there. IMO this is what he wasn’t much of a factor in Buffalo last season.

You sure he’d be the best? If he could somehow revert back to the Cole Beasley of 2020, then absolutely. But toward the end of 2021 he really seemed to take a step back and another step back last season. I think he’s cooked physically as a WR though he still can read a defense. The amount of interest he’s drew last off-season and this off-season is telling.

From every beat reporter that I trust, the Bills LOVE Ed Oliver and would like to keep him. The situation could turn out to be a bit like Tremaine Edmunds. Joe Buscaglia even said he wouldn’t be surprised to see Ed re-signed in the off-season, though it’s the players best interest to play through the season. Either way it seems like the Bills like Oliver a lot more than the fanbase does. So much of social media is over-analyzed and misinterpreted. Remember when Diggs was unhappy and demanded a trade to Dallas to play with his brother?

My main takeaway was “if you don’t Iike 1:00 PM games then…get used to it!” It sounds like BUF, KC, and CIN are going to be on TV all the time

Great selection there…the original #12

There’s a pretty big Bills section at every Wegmans in WNY. Bills merch everywhere

I said no, only because of his contract. I’m not sure how the Bills take that on without making significant changes to the roster. But I do think that NFL GM’s often overvalue draft picks. Imagine if the Bills, not the Rams, made a trade for Von Miller in 2021. Also Beane doesn’t have the best track record with 2nd round picks. Either way, I trust what the Bills will do but the prospect of adding a player like Hopkins in exchange for a 2nd round talent who turns out to be a Cody Ford, AJ Epinesa, Boogie Basham, or James Cook sounds pretty good to me

More like 11:00 PM

I like both Shady and Kelly. I do agree that Kelly’s comments about Allen might have been a little antiquated but got Shady to criticize him for not winning Super Bowl’s is a bit much. He won a ring by standing on the sidelines in warm ups. Also remember where Shady works….FS1. The same channel that’s the home to Colin Cowherd, Nick Wright, Emmanuel Acho etc… they encourage their talents to go over the top with their opinions

The “learning to fall” premise is flawed. He can try to tuck his chin all he wants but most of the time he’s not going to have any control with how his body hits the ground - especially when other players are on topic of him. It’s different in WWE as the wrestlers (who also tuck their chin) know when then are going to fall and have a high degree of control of their body.

ErieCountyBills is still about this!

All you need to do is to look at the fact that the Bills restructured Diggs this off-season. That essentially makes it impossible to get rid of him for the next 2 seasons. You can read into any comments you want, but the Bills don’t make that move if there was some concern about Diggs.

But I do believe that what happened with Cowher directly influenced the types of HC candidates he brought into Buffalo

Beck Waters aka Hapless Bills Fan

This is mostly true. He was forced out of Pittsburgh after a power struggle with Cowherd. So when he became GM he hired young, inexperienced coaches that wouldn’t pose any threat like Cowher did. Ironically, after Donahoe Ralph Wilson felt burned. For the rest of his time in Buffalo he refused to hire a GM that he didn’t personally know or have a relationship with already. That resulted in the comical hires of Marv Levy, Russ Brandon and Buddy Nix ugh

Not true… Beane traded a 1st round pick to acquire Diggs. The problem with Whaley is that he couldn’t see that his QB was trash… He took players off the board and made the draft picks… that’s why you can’t give Whaley credit for 2017 like the OP did

The only draft picks that matters in a rebuild

This premise is flawed from the start because omitting Allen from the equation is like saying “if you removed the Norwood FG, Marv Levy is a Super Bowl winning coach.” 🙄 Not all of these draft picks are of equal value. The #1 priority of most GM’s is to find a franchise QB so IMO it’s unfair to remove the most important pick from his resume. Also Whaley and Donahue whiffed baldly on QB, so that should also be factored into their score. Another flaw is assigning the 2017 draft class to Whaley. It was reported that while Whaley and staff did scoring, McDermott set the board and made the picks so I don’t feel it’s fair to attribute that players to Whaley. The other point is that the book has not been written on all of Beane’s picks. There’s a chance Davis, Oliver, Rosseau and Brown (ugh) could have good years. If that happens, Beane’s drafts look a lot better. Aside from this, if your main point was that Beane has been slightly better than Donahoe and that Whaley’s draft were really bad, I would agree. Of course the biggest difference is that he nailed the only pick that matters as a GM, whereas Donahoe did not. There are plenty of area where you can find fault with Beane as a GM but fortunately the big gambles he has taken on Josh have paid off and succeeded

Von has toxic positivity! It’s a good sign he’s practicing w/o a brace though I wouldn’t be surprised to see him start the season on PUP

How has Andy sacrificed defense?

It’s not really a good question. They restructured Josh’s contract because they were over the cap. The #1 problem with the Bills roster IMO is their failure to develop the defensive line. They spent 3 premium picks on DE and at the end of 2021 had no pass rush so they overspent to get Von Miller. When he was active he gave the Bills what they were looking for, but of course, he tore his ACL. They’ve tied multiple premium draft picks and a very high salary into DE and as of today only have a decent player like Greg Roseau to show for it.

I agree that the situation in Buffalo was dysfunctional, but I also don’t think Whaley was that good as a GM or even that much better than Buddy Nix who I thought was terrible. His strength was pro player evaluation and he made some very nice under the radar FA signings, but he was very bad at team building, not good with the cap, and probably worse than Beane at drafting. There seemed to be no long term strategy and he was about taking the big swing for present w/o considering the future implications. I also don’t think Doug had the wherewithal or knowledge to recognize/fix the dysfunction at OBD. Say what you will about McDermott but he drained the swap in less than 4 months. It was a completely different organization when he took over. IMO Whaley was in over his head as GM and probably should have stayed in scouting/pro personnel where I think he’d be an asset. It is telling that Whaley has not worked in the NFL since his firing in 2017

Like you said, you can do this with so many players. To add fuel to the fire I remember reading an article from Tyler Dunne where he said Terry loved Mahomes 🤣 The bigger question is, should Terry have fired Whaley along with Rex? Because the whole situation in the winter of 2017 was not ideal in anyway for the Bills. The entire Whaley/Russ Brandon/Scott Berchtold regime was filled with leaks to the media. McDermott wisely didn’t trust any of the incumbents and he was given the autonomy from Terry to make any change after a complete evaluation. I get the impressions that Terry was advised not to fire the GM until after the draft, as there’s a thought that you don’t want your scouts/GM sharing. It’s also hard to hire a new scouting staff and GM in January and then do all the personnel/scouting stuff but it has been done before. From McDermott’s perspective he 100% made the right call. You sometimes only get one shot at a franchise QB. Rather than taking a gamble on intel from the lame duck, untrustworthy GM, he stuck to what he knew - defensive backs. He found an All-Pro and also received a #1 pick to help draft his franchise QB so I’d say it worked out. It does make you wonder if Beane gets hired along with McDermott in 2017, if they take the big swing to draft Mahomes or Watson and start “the process” a year earlier.