GASabresIUFan

Yep, the Falcons should now be able to compete for a playoff spot. We are a house divided; 2 Bills fans, 2 Falcons fans (but all Braves, Sabres & UGA fans). The Falcons fans are going to be very excited for the coming season.

Wow, a great trade for the Falcons. Moore, London and Moody are a pretty good receiving group.

Don't forget the Bills clear another 10 mill on 6/1 when White is officially released. Has any seen the contract terms (and cap hits) for Hollins and Morrow or the cap hit for Jones? I'm surprised that we haven't seen any numbers on the cap changes for Knox and Dawkins.

He earned a new deal. I’m glad he’s back.

I read on CBSsports last night an article saying what a good signing this was. That Hollins would be the replacement for Davis and he'd finally have an elite QB throwing to him. I almost choked on the glass of water I was drinking. I went to post the article here, but CBS has taken it down. I guess an editorial review decided that the author's suspect conclusions weren't worthy of remaining online.

Thank you. Why waste any $ over the minimum on a guy who at best will be our 6th or 7th pass catching option. As someone who lives in the ATL and watches (unfortunately) many Falcons games, nothing but his size stands out about Hollins.

Davis made 2.742 last season (according to spotrac). I agree that spending anything on Hollins is a waste. At best he'll be our 4th WR. His 251 yards last season were 18 more than Sherfield and Harty combined. So that's a plus and he was solid for LV in 2022. The guy is a big target (6'4 220) and this may be a hint that they don't have much faith in Shorter who is also 6'4. Beane, for reasons unknown, like to waste cap money on unproductive veteran receivers. From a roster standpoint, he is the "big receiver." I guess we expect the speed receiver to come from the draft (Mitchell or Worthy?), because speed is not Hollins game (4.53 at the combine in 2017).

I hope everyone is happy, the Bills signed a veteran WR!

Shakir was a 5th rd pick. Davis a 4th. Puca Nacua was a 5th rd pick last year. So yes, why not? We paid nearly $5 mill to the vet no. 5 WR last season and received 15 catches for 150 yards for our efforts. Sherfield played 34% and only gave us 22 catches for 86 yards. I'd say he didn't earn his 1.7 million. My guess is Shorter gets us 3 times that number for 1/2 the money. Even high end FA WRs are also a 50/50 proposition at best. Last year ODJ was paid $15 million for caught 35 balls for 565 yards. Lazard was give a 4 year deal for $44 million and caught 23 for 311. JuJu was paid 8.6 for 29 catches & 260 yards. Out of the top 10 FAs that changed teams only 4 gave their teams any value. Thielen ($8.3) 103 for 1014 was the best, Slayton ($6) 50 for 770. Meyers ($11) 71 for 807 and Hopkins ($13) 75 for 1057. Harty was the 10th highest paid FA WR last season. The No 11 Parris Campbell ($4.7) caught 20 balls for 104 yards. A few weeks ago I researched how WRs drafted 20 -40 do their first year and they averaged about 700 yards as rookies. Give me the rookie to replace Davis, and I'm just fine with Shorter replacing Sherfield and another later pick or Hamler/Isabella replacing Harty. If you want to take a flyer on a cheap vet, I'd give Mecole Hardman a shot. Last I looked he has a couple of Super Bowl rings and caught the game winning catch this year.

Why invest a 1st rd pick in a talented WR not to play him? That's what we'd be doing if we invest Big $ in a FA WR. Last season our No. 4 WR played 33.68% of the downs and the 5th WR 13.32%. On the other hand Diggs played 81.5%, Davis 83% and Shakir 52%. Kincaid also played 60%. Shakir and Kincaid will see they % increase next season. I'd argue that after Diggs, Kincaid is now the No. 2 receiver. KC's no. 1 receiver was a rookie drafted 55th. After his 900+ yards and Kelce's 900+ yards, their next best receiver was a journeyman pro with 460 yards. GB's Top 4 WRs and top 2 TES were all 1st and 2nd year players and that didn't hold them back. WR's and RBs are the most plug and play positions in the NFL. We have tons of experience in Diggs and Knox. Shakir is a 3rd year player. We really don't need some "veteran" to win. Draft a WR early and let him replace Davis. We have enough experience everywhere else. Save the money, we can afford the risk.

Why is that even necessary? Why spend money on a retread WR when you can draft as good and possibly better player with your 28th pick in a deep WR draft for 1/3rd the price. The goal this off-season is to get younger and cheaper, but at WR it's also a goal to upgrade the talent. Adding an injury prone 600 yard receiver for $10 mill is a huge waste of resources, especially when that 2nd boundary position could be Josh's 6th most popular target behind Diggs, Kincaid, Shakir, Knox and Cook. Sorry, I just don't see the need for big $ FA help at WR.

Don't expect any major money invested here. When guys like Mooney are getting $10+ a year, Beane is going to stay far far away.

Given Beane’s draft history it’s doubtful he makes 11 picks. Even if he makes 11 picks, it’s going to be hard for all 11 to make the team. Even if they don’t make the team, odds favor the guys ending up on the practice squad. Don’t forget that in addition to the 39 guys I referenced there are another 18 guys on reserve/futures contracts. Now add the draftees plus some UDFAs and camp invites there will be 40-50 guys competing for those 13 jobs and 12 practice squad slots. Last season of our 6 draftees, 3 made the team, 1 ended up on IR and the 2 7th rd guys ended up on the practice squad. Both those guys were eventually claimed by other teams.

I think that's a good thing. This roster needed to get younger and cheaper. It also needed player who weren't mostly special teams specialists like Neal & Matakevich. I also think we needed youth on the field to develop properly long-term. Giving snaps to the Matakevich's of the world doesn't help Ankou or Cline or Spector get any better IMHO.

With the signing of Morrow, the team breakdown now looks as follows (not including futures/reserve players Total current players = Offense 17 of 23 players (roster allocation to the position from 2023 in (x)). QB (2) - current 2: Allen & Trubisky RB/FB (4) - current 2: Cook & Gilliam TE (3) - current 3: Kincaid, Knox, Morris WR (5) - current 3: Diggs, Shakir, & Shorter Oline (9) - current 7: Brown, Dawkins, McGovern, Torrence, Edwards, Anderson & Van Denmark (Doyle still in the mix) Defense 18 of 25 players Dline (10) - Current 6 - Jones, Oliver, Rousseau, Miller, Jonathan, & Epenesa (Cline and Ankou also in the mix) LBs (5) - current 5 - Milano, Benard, Williams, Morrow, & Spector CB (6) - current 4 - Johnson, Douglas, Benford, & Elam S (4) - Current 3 - Rapp, Hamlin, & Lewis (CB) Specialists 4 of 3 slots - Bass (PK), Ferguson (LS), Martin (P) & Haack (P) - one of Haack or Martin aren't going to make the team. Looks like there are 13 jobs still available - 2 RB, 2 WR, 2 OL, 4 DL, 2 CB & 1 S. My guess is 6-7 of these jobs will go to draft picks (WR, S, CB, OL, RB, 2DL?). Still hopeful Ty Johnson returns at RB.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/buf/2023-snap-counts.htm Benard 999 (93.19%) Dodson 549 (51.21%) Milano 211 (19.68%) Williams 211 (19.68%) Spector 25 (2.33%) Matakevich 16 (1.49%)

Really interesting signing. I guess that means the Spector is going to be the primary LB on Special Teams. I suppose he is Milano health insurance? I guess we can scratch LB depth off the draft list.

I'm sure front offices project everything. Assets are assets after all and draft picks are players and the higher the pick, usually the better the player. My guess is they figured they'd get a 3rd compensatory and therefore giving up a 3rd for Douglas was well worth it. Getting a pick, 40 picks later has to be a disappointment.

I was annoyed at spotrac, so I did a cap calculation with 6 million allocated to Jones and 1.5 to Lewis, but without deducting for Dawkins and Knox and we are approximately 5 million over. Given that calculation and assuming Knox and Dawkins save us at least $6 million we are probably good unless we sign someone else. Spotrac estimates over 11 million for our draft picks, but only a 6.7 million cap hit in our top 51. Not sure when that cap has to be available.

That doesn’t work. If you were 4 million over add another 4 million and then removes 16.7, you should then be 8.7 to the good not just 800k. We are missing something else they did.

Math seems weird. I thought they had us at 4 million over before accounting for AJ. Now they account for AJ and his 3.94 cap hit and the overage goes down by 3 million? Weird. I could have read it wrong. Maybe it was 4 million under.

Given AJ’s contract, I figure the Bills are about 5.66 over the cap before factoring in Jones, Lewis, Dawkins and Knox. If Lewis is about 1.5 and Jones about 6, that puts us at 13.16 over. Most of that will probably be erased by the Dawkins extension and Knox pay cut, but it looks like there is still some work to do by tomorrow. My guess is an extension for Johnson and maybe a restructure for Oliver or Milano. I can also see Gilliam getting cut.

The $4 million over is net of Josh's restructure. Sorry.

I do have concerns about him being an effective 17 game starter. There were times last year where he was a head hunter and missed tackles because of it (and got a few bad penalties). His grades last year by both the Athletic and PFF were not great. In fact, of the 36 Bills who played 200 or more snaps on either D or O, Rapp was 31st according to the Athletic. They gave him a 2.5 grade out of 4 and PFF gave him a 56 out of 100.

I doubt it. He only played 144 snaps on defense last year (13.4%). By comparison Rapp played 421 (39.3%). Dane Jackson played 463 (43.2%). Hamlin played only 17 snaps total, which is why I think he won't make the team. Lewis is fine for emergency use, but isn't stepping in for anyone long-term.