GASabresIUFan

Hard to get top notch WRs if you don't draft any. Compare to GB since 2021. Buffalo - top 3 round WR picks - 1 - 2nd rd pick Coleman (2024); next pick Shakir in the 5th (2022) Green Bay - top 3 round WR picks - 5 2025 - Golden 1st rd and Sav Williams 3rd rd 2023 - Reed 2nd rd (plus Wicks in the 5th rd) 2022 - Watson 2nd rd (plus Doubs in the 4th) 2021 - Rodgers 3rd rd

A few years ago DB was a strength of this defense with Hyde, Poyer, White, and Johnson Potentially, as early as next season, the DBs could be developing into an excellent group with Benford and Hairston at the corners, Bishop and maybe Hancock at safety. If Taron gets health then the slot is also covered. This group would have significantly more speed at both safety and the boundary corners.

Gabe played 41% of the offensive snaps (23 plays) Palmer played 50% (28) Mecole played 7% (4 snaps) Samuel play 50% (28 snaps) Shakir and Shavers 54% (30 snaps each). I'd say that's a very reasonable amount of snaps for Davis' season debut.

FYI Mecole only had 4 offensive snaps before his "injury."

Over his 81 game career Mecole has had 10 fumbles (only 3 recovered). So about 2 fumbles every 17 games. Codrington over his 21 game career had 3 fumbles (2 recovered). So also about 2 fumbles every 17 games, but Mecole also contributes in the passing game and has more "opportunites" to fumble. I'm not advocating for Mecole to be cut. In fact, I think the opposite. I think McD put him in a terrible position and should have insisted on punt returns be fair caught until he gets back into the swing of things. Prior to yesterday's game, Mecole's last NFL games was 11.5 months ago with KC.

Which is a terrible stat for a kick returner.

Bishop still makes plenty of mistakes, but boy has he improved. How many big plays has he made so far? 10? More?

Terrible fumble at a terrible time. Is this all on Mecole or should McD have told him to just fair catch the punt? I understand he was signed to add a more dynamic presence to the kick return game. He broke one early and then on kick off they avoided him the rest of the game and got burned by Davis. I guess my question is should McD have been more conservative with a guy new the organization and has been out of of football for a while, especially on punt returns where the returner is under more immediate pressure than on a kick off. Given the score and the fact that we'd have had a short field even with a fair catch, I don't think I'd have risked the return in the that situation. Will the Bills cut Mecole over the mistake? I understand they announced he left the game with an injury, but I'm a little skeptical. It feels more like a benching similar to the one Cook received following a bad fumble.

Quick note of passes to the RBs In 4 weeks starting with the NE game and ending with the KC game Josh threw only 9 passes to RBs (only 2 to Cook) for 6 catches for 63 yards and a TD In the last 2 weeks 14 targets, 13 catches for 175 yards and 2 TDs. Cook is 8 for 8 with 90 yards and a TD. Clearly something has changed in the game plan. In the TB game, I loved that we went down field more as well. Having Palmer back clearly helps and Shavers is making a positive impact. Shavers in his limited career has 241 yards on 12 receptions (18 targets - I'll take 2/3 for a boundary receiver) with 2 TDs. Maybe he needs more targets? Hopefully he'll turn out better than Robert Foster (who had 3 100 yard games as a rookie).

Game balls - Bishop, Gabe Davis (yes even with the endzone drop), Ray Davis (he was excellent on the kick returns) and Ty Johnson. I thought Dorian Williams made some nice plays, but outside of Bishop hard to give anyone on the defense a game ball when they allowed Tucker, the 3rd string TB RB, to run all over them. Josh was terrible early and although he had a great statistical games TD wise, I think his decision making, especially early, was awful.

This defense isn't good enough to win in the playoffs. If you can't stop the run, you're not going to win long-term. That said, the Bills are good enough to beat anyone on a given Sunday, but without more consistency on offense and better play stopping the run and getting to the QB, this team as currently constructed isn't good enough to win the SB.

I predict that I have no idea which Bills team will show up. The one that dominated the Chiefs or the one the got punked by Atlanta and Miami.

Deck chairs on the Titanic?

I'm not sure that's true for a contract that is expired. For example with Tre White, he was still under contract and by giving him a June 1 designation the Bills saved about $10 mill (if memory serves). How Milano, Bosa, McGovern etc.. all are on expiring contracts.

So where can the Bills create cap space. 1) Cut Knox. Savings $9.6 mill 2) Restructure, Taron Johnson, Dawkins, and Oliver. All carry dead cap less than their 2026 cap hit but only about $3 mill per player. A restructure likely creates more space 3) Cut Bass - cap savings 2.9 mill 4) Cut Rapp - Cap savings 3.5 5) Cut Samuel - Cap Savings $6.3 6)