Cray51

I will say - I went back and watched a few games from last year - our defense was very fortunate and looked visibly slow and weak. In particular, Rasul Douglas looked BAD and was an issue consistently for our team. If Hairston can come in and anchor that second corner spot, along with Forrest/Hancock/Bishop/Hamlin taking another step, that alone will greatly help this defense if Hairston locks down CB2 and Jackson/Walker/Carter/Sanders become solid starters on the line? Watch out. This team will look visibly better this year

Safety is a weak group in general around the NFL. Very few teams have legit starting safeties in a tandem. Poyer and Hyde were considered a top 3 duo, and they were not really household names around the league Rapp is a perfectly find starting safety. He would start on half the teams in the league. Hamlin is not, but you do have Bishop as a young safety with potential. Maybe they are closer to 20-22nd, but I wouldn't put them further down. CB are absolutely top 15 - the only question was CB2, but we drafted one in the first round. They have a legit top 15 CB group when you include Taron is a top 5 slot corner and Benford is a top 10 boundary corner D-line is the deepest group in the league. From 1-8 we have legit starting talent in the rotation. It lacks top end talent, but there's plenty of talent there. It may actually be top 10.

Kyle is a rookie third round pick in a weak WR class. That's not a stud receiver. He may be, but he isn't a more appealing option than say Palmer/Coleman/Shakir/Samuel. He would be WR5 on this team with some work at boundary to see if he could make an impact. Gabe Davis had 17.2 yards per reception his draft year too... Saints don't have adams - their WR depth is Olave, Shaheed, Cooks, Kelvin Austin, Means, Cedrick Wilson. I'd take Shakir over everyone listed, and I'd take Palmer over everyone assuming Olave is out. Saints have a bad group, easily worse than the Bills Raiders have Bowers, but Bech is a decent rookie receiver. With that said, when we look at just the WR room, they are below the Bills. It's not really close either. Bowers and Jeanty elevate their room, but that's not the question - I was looking purely at receiver. When I look at the roster, you could make a case the Bills are top 15 in almost every single position group except WR. And it's not like their room is the worst in the league, it's just in the bottom third. QB - 1 RB - Top 5 TE - Top 10 WR - 23-28 O-line - Top 5 D-line - Top 15 LB - Top 10 CB - Top 12 Safety - 15-20ish So they are below average for WR and Safety. I think if you are building a team and you said pick two positions to not be good/great at, those along with LB would be my choice.

WR rooms who are worse than ours (or at least in the same ballpark) Patriots - Diggs is aged and coming off of an ACL issue. They have Hollins, Douglas who is a decent young receiver, and Polk who was a disappointment last year Steelers - they have DK and a bunch of guys who would struggle to make the roster here. It's not a good group Raiders - Meyers and a bunch of nothing afterwards Saints - Aged Cooks, Shaheed is ok, and Olave cannot stay healthy. That's not a good WR room unless everything goes right for them So that's 4 teams that I would say are clearly below the Bills in WR room talent. If you add in our TE's and RB's we are jumping a bunch of teams who have better WR groups but worse talent at the other positions. All in all, our "weapons" around Allen are slightly below league average, slightly above league average when you include our very solid offensive line, and straight up top 3 when Allen is part of the discussion.

I dont hate bringing him into camp and seeing what he can be. Similar to Dane Jackson, if you get 1 year of serviceable play, I'm not complaining

Teams that had bad offseasons: Atlanta - did very little in FA, overpaid for Floyd and Diablo. However, their draft was quite solid. Bengals - nothing to address 0-line, pay a ton to keep Higgins, and their defense is still poor. Drafted Stewart who had no production in college, and nothing else stood out from the draft. They are wasting Burrow's prime years with bad management Browns - bad FA signings, and draft was a cluster Dallas - very middling, expect another 5-7 win season Jets - Fields is your hope and you draft TE early second with other more important options on the board? Expect them to be bad again

You don’t guarantee anything publicly for the sake of some radio host

Who from 2024 was worth drafting starting with the Bishop pick? Jalen McMillan, who played third fiddle to Evans and Godwin? No one else after pick 35 has done anything at WR... Who from 2023? Puka, but everyone missed on him. The only other outside threat that was taken after pick 55 with any value is Michael Wilson. Anyone who was productive from the second round on in 23 is primary slot. That's Shakir's spot. That's kind of Beane's point. It's not really gold you are trying to hit. It's the rarest gems you can try to find. There has been 1 legit top 2 WR taken in 23 or 24 after pick 40 - Nacua. You want to risk 2 picks a year on having a 5% chance at landing a decent boundary WR? That's bad asset management. What Beane needs to do is prepare the roster so he can take a 2nd or 3rd and trade for a guy who needs a new deal soon. That opportunity should open up after this season.

I spend all day building AI tools lol - arguing with it is a daily task! 2023 was college, where there was reference to him lining up outside 70% of the time. Last year, his production came within the slot, and as @GunnerBill has mentioned in other threads in the past, LA continued to put him there even though they had terrible outside options; because he is the most effective in the slot and not a true boundary option

In the NFL, when you referenced to their production differences, Ladd is a slot guy. I mean engaged like willing to attack and be more forceful, not physically engaged. I agree, he is consistently engaged with defenders, just not the meaning of the word I intended. Coming back from his injury, he was not attacking the football like he was during the first 5-6 weeks of the year where he was semi-productive against draft position

Ladd is a slot receiver only. He is not and will not be an outside vertical threat. They believe Coleman will be that. Sam Laporta's year last year was just like Kincaid's rookie year (barring TDs, which are always too fluctuating to be relevant in trend discussions). I understand being disappointed - but that's not what you said. You said "miss" The players still had moments and can be contributing players. That's not a miss. If the goal for a pick is to be better than every single pick after you, every GM will fail almost every year. Compare Allen to Jackson - we traded up twice to take a guy who has less MVPs than the guy we could've selected at 23... There was one receiver drafted after Keon who outproduced him prior to injury - Ladd. Who is a slot guy There was one TE who outproduced Kincaid - Laporta, who was part of the best designed and staffed offense in the league That doesn't make both guys misses If he was where Bishop was selected last year I would've been fine with his rookie season. I think when engaged, he can go up and pluck the ball better than most. It's the other things that he needs to work on.

Wild take. Caught unprepared when Diggs left? They literally were the ones that decided to do it. Kincaid had a bad second year but a great rookie year. Coleman had a solid start, and then fractured his wrist and missed a chunk of time… cmon now

Averaging 5 yards a carry and 15 a catch with a 60% catch rate while taking kickoff responsibility as needed, playing special teams, and being a prime blocker? And Allen was effusive in his praise and calls him the best 3rd down back in the league? Just tell us you don’t understand key player

So you don’t understand how effective Ty Johnson was for this team last year. could’ve just said that I tried a conversation but… yea

What's funny, is the Bills signed Leonard Floyd who was a solid player in June of 2023... And signed Ty Johnson in August of 2023... So the idea from the other poster that you can't find key players is funny. Both those guys were solid players for the Bills.

Totally understand. I decided to listen to the show prior to Beane and they went back to the lack of WR picks several times in the 90 minutes prior, spending very little time on the actual selections in the draft.

White's solution last year was trade 2 firsts + for Rome Odunze, who had 54 catches on 101 targets for 734 yards and 3 TDs. OR, trade a first and second for Aiyuk and give him a fat contract, who blew his ACL Yea, this guys knows receivers!!

Defense allowed Mahomes to have his best offensive performance of the year against them. The D allowed 13 seconds. Memory must be short if you just remember a drop or missed field goal here or there. The defense (and not just the production, but the age of the core) was an issue and needed to be addressed. They need to get younger at CB and D-line. Needed to. And this was the draft to do that.

Yea, I agree it's not Beane's best moment. With that said, Jeremy has access to that PC and Beane's decision making and still spent an hour of the show before Beane went on bashing the WR room. I'm sure it's quite frustrating for him

If that's the case, most stats then are not applicable and the entire conversation moves to eye test. The production of the statistic is the rate at which the QB scrambles outside of the tackles on a passing play. I'm not sure how "not exactly consistent" applies there. Allen - from the statistics available at current time - does not leave the pocket at a significant measure. Not 70% like you exaggerated, not heavily above average. 3% above average. That's very slight. Allen is REALLY GOOD at creating outside of the pocket, but that doesn't mean he leaves the pocket at a higher rate than others. I agree that Allen is the engine of the offense, which is why Beane has invested in an o-line that by statistics is very good and provides strong pass protection. In addition, he made an o-line that is very good with their running game, and forces defenses to respect the run.

I mean... the 2023 and 2024 stats I could find point to him being in a clean pocket at an above average rate, and him staying in the pocket at a slightly below average rate. That's not even addressing the situation of designed plays where allen moves with the line, which I know the Bills like to pull their tackles for RPOs. I understand the feeling that Allen leaves the pocket a lot and is forced out, but frankly the statistics measure him at an average rate.

The only thing I would say, if I had to choose something around the WR room to criticize Beane about - I really wanted Darnell Mooney last year and felt he would be a true #2 WR. We went with Samuel at a much lower rate, but I was comfortable paying a bit more for Mooney. Otherwise, I dont really see too much to argue with Beane about when it comes to his receiver approach. Maybe taking Ladd over Coleman, or potentially bringing someone else in FA. But when you see what the FA WRs are getting from bad teams, I'm not shocked Beane has instead focused towards other positions where you can obtain good talent without breaking the bank

Where are you getting 70% from? I found an analysis from 2023 that he threw from clean pockets almost 45% of the time. Where is this 70% of dropbacks he leaves the pocket? I found one post showing that Allen stayed in the pocket for roughly 57% of passes through the first 5 weeks of this year, which is slightly (like 3% lower) than league average. Again, nothing about leaving the pocket 70% of the time

Allen bailing every play is a very broad generalization of the offense. Allen has a very very good oline in front of him and our skill players aren’t trash, they are league average

The two of them were sitting there complaining about the draft where we addressed 3 of our most glaring holes, while taking guys with really good upside and traits. They spent very little time acknowledging the good about the improvements to defense, and spent most of the time saying "well, you scored 30, but against KC you only scored 29... we should've taken a receiver". I was all for a WR in round 4, the first three rounds the bes tpicks were clearly defense. If Golden fell to 24, I could have seen an option for a trade up. However, he didn't. I understand saying "yea, maybe in round 4 a guy like Royals could have been a nice find", but to sit here and just whine about WR this and WR that, I'm not shocked Beane is pissed. And then to just go "well, I wish you listened to the first 2.5 hours of the show", uhhh it was obvious that White was only really concerned about the lack of WR as a result of the draft. The praise was very minor in comparison to the 40 minutes of WR talk. Idiots