BillsFanForever19

We're actually carrying more DL than we are DB. We're carrying 8 on Defense for the 5 DB spots (Both Boundary CB's, Nickel CB, and both Safeties) and 8 for the 4 DL spots. Brandon Codrington and Samuel Franklin Jr. are DB's in name only. They're active strictly for Special Teams. I would be shocked to see as much as a single snap between them on Defense. Codrington is our Returner and Franklin is one of Tabor's favorite Teams defenders - but neither one of them is an NFL caliber DB.

My guess is Strong will get the first shot, with Ingram cycling in. If he looks not ready, they'll probably switch to Ingram more. I'm guessing with no CB elevation, they'll rely on Cam Lewis some on the Outside, if someone goes down.

Jackson isn't surprising. We weren't going to dress all 5 DE's, he didn't look ready for primetime in the Pre-Season, and Solomon is a core Special Teams player.

You're seriously fooling yourself if you think Ray Davis can Kick the Ball 55 yards, even with a running start - just bc you saw him kick a line drive extra point that went halfway up the uprights. No team in the league right now is stressing about whether or not their Kicker can make a tackle and pulling them off the field for players at other positions bc they are better suited to tackle. You're really overthinking this in many different ways and your misguided idea won't be a thing. If it were, we'd have seen Ray Davis instead of Caden Davis trying Kickoffs during the Pre-Season and heard reports of him doing it in practice.

You Kickoff from your own 35. Even if you're kicking it to just the opposing 15, you're booming it 50 yards. You can't really think Ray Davis has 50-55 yard kicks in him You want Ray Davis Kicking off, he'll be Kicking it to where they'd be on a Touchback under the new rules anyways. Matt Prater is an actual Kicker. 41 years old doesn't mean he's broken down. Kickers in their 40's is fairly common. If there were a concern on whether he could handle Kickoffs - we'd have brought someone else in.

Matt Prater has a booming leg. And, ya know - is an actual Kicker. Even at 40 last season, he was still making 50+ yard kicks. Ray Davis kicked a couple extra points. Didn't get a lot of air on those XP's either. There's a reason he didn't Kick Off - they used Caden Davis for those. He's not booming Kickoffs.

You're joking, right? This has to be a joke.

It's Kicker. They line up and they kick. Your Kicker's hurt? You bring in a new Kicker. Bass got hurt, we signed Prater. Why do you need to plan ahead beyond that? It's not like he needs to learn a playbook or develop chemistry with other positions. As for why they didn't sign Prater until now, it's pretty obvious that there was either a reaggravation and/or they thought the injury wasn't as bad as it was. The plan was for him to be ready to roll Week 1. They even had him kick in the last Pre-Season game. Obviously, something changed and their plans changed and they decided to shut it down. Point remains the same though. What's it matter if Prater was here earlier or when we got him? The job remains the same. He kicks off a tee on Kickoffs, he lines up and kicks field goals and extra points. I don't see his performance being better or worse coming in now vs. then.

I don't think Franklin is going to be inactive. They brought him in specifically for Special Teams and he's one of Tabor's favorite ST'ers. I would expect one of Landon Jackson or Javon Solomon to be inactive. Possibly Jackson, as Solomon is a Special Teams player. I know Shavers is a fan favorite lately, but I'm not convinced that he'll be active and Moore won't. Shavers is the #4 Boundary WR on the Depth Chart. Moore is the #2 Slot on the Depth Chart. It wouldn't surprise me if Shavers dressed over Moore. But I would be equally, if not more unsurprised if it went the other way.

While I think people are generally overlooking Michael Hoecht - this idea that "Our upgrades at DL are suspended 6 weeks" isn't true. Especially along the Interior. T.J. Sanders and Deone Walker is where the major improvements were made. Larry Ogunjobi is an upgrade over some of the depth we had. But I don't think anyone's looking at him as the real game changer among those three additions. And like I said, I expect bigger things out of Hoecht than was thought when we signed him - especially after the impressive off-season he had. And we'll be better when he is in the lineup. But Bosa is where the major upgrade is. The only "wild card" about Bosa is whether or not he can stay healthy. And there's also Landon Jackson, who was hot and cold in the Pre-Season. All this to say we made 6 additions along the Defensive Line to improve it. We have 4 of those 6 on hand now and they're most of where the improvements are expected to come from.

Not surprising. Beane calls on everything. Even if he knows it isn't something doable. Bc you don't want to be the team looking back saying "sheesh - that's all it took? I would have done that". But as is the case most of the time and was clearly the case here, it was probably a "what are you looking for and what's he looking for?" and then an "okay, let me know if that changes, thanks for your time". Even if we could come up with that kind of money to take on Parsons' current deal and then signed him to the deal Green Bay did (which would take some Olympic level cap gymnastics) - we still would have had to beat their offer of 2 1sts (when their picks are thought to be marginally better than ours) and Kenny Clark (who is probably worth more to the Cowboys than Ed Oliver). Then if we were able to do all that, we'd be *so* up against the cap, we'd need to rely on our Draft Picks for replacements - which after this year includes 19 of our 53, 7 of which starters. And we wouldn't be picking before around Pick 60 the next two seasons. It just wasn't feasible. And that's why it was only "explored".

Not only are they not signing someone to the 53 to bring up 3, not only are they not bringing up a DT - they aren't bringing up a CB either. DT isn't a surprise as I've always said 4 DT's are enough and Carter would have been inactive anyways. Relying on just Christian Benford, Dorian Strong, and Ja'Marcus Ingram on the Outside is a bit of surprise though. But I'm guessing they feel like they can use Cam Lewis on the Outside if someone gets hurt. Kendrick Green makes sense as they probably feel SVPG isn't ready to throw into the lineup so soon from injury, if Connor McGovern gets dinged up.

I think if Prater is Perfect in his stead, it will be hard for them to justify pulling him out for Bass coming off injury. If Prater starts missing kicks and Bass is ready to go, he'll be back.

At least his 6th Round Insurance Policy immediately made up for it and he was able to get something out of the mistake. We got a 5th this year and a 7th next year. We turned that 5th into Jordan Hancock - who looked very impressive and could very well become a Starter as soon as next season as a Nickel or a Safety.

We do. We signed Matt Prater to the Practice Squad. He'll replace Bass until or if he's ready to come back. Just haven't put him on the Active Roster yet bc they can elevate him from the PS this week and put him on the roster next week and this avoids having his contract guaranteed for the whole season.