BillsFanForever19

1.) With the return to practice of T.J. Sanders and the return from injury of Daquan Jones, in conjunction with Larry Ogunjobi coming off of suspension, and having Deone Walker (without even getting into the development of former 2nd Round Pick Phidarian Mathis or Jordan Phillips, both also on the 53) - DT is no longer an issue for us. When we were down Oliver, Jones, and Sanders is when we would have made that kind of move. We're good there now. DT isn't what's hurting us. Where we need help is Defensive End, after the season ending injuries to Michael Hoecht and Landon Jackson and the release of Kingsley Jonathan from the Practice Squad. 2.) Christian Wilkins is a mental case. On top of what we heard of him creating issues in the locker room (of which what we heard probably only scratched the surface), he also told his team to go F itself during injury rehabilitation - choosing to do whatever he wanted over team doctors orders. He was such a problem in the friggin' RAIDERS locker room, that they decided eating upwards of FIFTY million in Dead Cap was better than having him in the building. The league is filled with teams that either are lacking talent at DT or in dire need bc of injuries. And not a *single* team in the entire NFL has so much as brought him in for a visit. That speaks enormous volumes. He's persona non grata in the league.

It is possible that they don't activate him this week and temporarily we sign someone else from the PS. But whether it was Hairston, Hoecht, or Ogunjobi - we've saved open roster spots for guys that are obviously coming back and given them the spots immediately. If they feel he's ready to practice, i'd assume they feel ready to put them on the roster. But you're right, it's not a guarantee.

They have to do something at DE. While we have the 4 active that we had all season before Hoecht returned in Bosa, Groot, AJE, and Solomon - a single injury would currently have us playing Daquan Jones at End or activating Andre Jones.

I'm assuming this occurred yesterday, as Hardman was announced as signed yesterday. Obviously, he was the choice at WR between him Virgil and Holiday. DE Morgan Fox is interesting. 9 year vet with 27.5 sacks throughout his career. Probably wouldn't be my first choice for DE depth, but Joe Marino is high on him.

I tend to agree with you on this. One thing I forgot and (have since updated the post with) is that open roster spot will probably go to T.J. Sanders returning from IR. But again, we still would have only needed to release 1 from the PS to fit Hardman on.

Last time they put someone on IR, they released 2 (Ciarlo, Wilkerson) from the PS to sign 2 (Jonathan, Couch), signed 1 from the PS to the 53 (Mathis) and brought one back the next day (Wilkerson) This time around we've again moved 1 to IR (Jackson), again released 2 (Jonathan, Wilkerson) from the PS but only signed 1 (Hardman). So someone from the PS will be brought up to the 53 tomorrow (who knows who?). Which will give us two open spots (losses of Wilkerson, Jonathan, and whomever goes to the 53, gain of Hardman). I assume someone else is going to be signed to the Practice Squad and (at least) one of those two releases won't be coming back. Because to fit Hardman on before the elevation tomorrow (as you have to move Jackson to IR officially before you can bring someone up), we'd have only needed to temporarily release 1 player and bring them back tomorrow. EDIT: Forgot about T.J. Sanders. Likely that open roster spot on the 53 will go to him. But again, to just fit Hardman on, all they'd have had to do is release one player from the PS.

The Bills have yet to officially announce it. That will probably happen tomorrow.

You know he signed to the Practice Squad, right? Not to say that he can't or won't play this week. But if they felt he were the kind of player that would go from the couch to starting for us over guys we've had starting all year, in under a week - I feel like he'd have been signed to the active roster. Especially when you consider we're completely healthy at WR now, are the walking wounded at other positions, and only have 2 PS elevations.

I wonder what number he's going to wear for us? Something tells me the numbers he wore in Kansas City, 17 and 12, won't be available 🤣

With the return of Jones this Sunday and Sanders returning to practice this week, we'll soon have 4/5 of our optimal DT room with Deone Walker, Daquan Jones, T.J. Sanders, and Larry Ogunjobi. Obviously, we're still missing our biggest piece in Ed Oliver. But a much better spot than we were at coming out of the Bye down Oliver, Jones, and Sanders.

The two of them replacing two of the guys at the bottom of the 5 we have active on Game Day will help. But I wouldn't expect a "massive upgrade" on the Passing offense. Especially since they'll be coming in and Kincaid is coming out.

Again, what was reported was that the Dolphins and the Jets refused to help us by giving us players. That we were the high bidder with a 2027 1st. But that they wanted a 2026 1st from someone if they were going to move him. What HASN'T been reported is that they told us they *would* trade him to us if we gave them a 2026 1st and that Beane decided to turn that down. If that's the case, the original report that they wouldn't trade him to us bc we were within the division doesn't make sense. If that were the case then they *were* willing to help us and we just turned them down. What I believe happened is that we made the offer we did, were immediately turned down for being us and that there was no counter offer. If it were what everyone is assuming it is and murdering Beane for, then the story wouldn't be the Dolphins and Jets refused to trade with us bc they didn't want to help us. The story would be that the Dolphins would have traded Waddle to the Bills but the Bills said no.

Would you rather we do nothing at all? I can get being upset that we couldn't get anything done with the Trade Deadline. And I can definitely understand being upset with what he's done overall to get Josh help. But the Deadline has passed. What's done is done. All we can do is bring in who's out there. And Hardman is about the best we can do. Again, it's something like this or doing nothing at all. I can't understand being annoyed by trying whatever we can at this point.

3 things: - Amari Cooper - Mack Hollins - Not this version of Keon Coleman You might laugh and say "Amari Cooper barely brought us anything and was only on the field like a third of the time". But he was on the field for obvious passing downs. And what he did was draw the top coverage his way and away from guys who couldn't handle it - opening them up. Which is in part what made Coleman a better version than this year. A large part of bringing in Cooper in to me was to get Coleman away from teams top coverage. This is part of the problem with him this year. He's generally matched up against the best Corner a team has. Which completely neutralizes him. On top of that, there was less film on him. I think the league has the complete book on him now. This is why you see a lot of players get a "sophomore slump". They've got a year of film to analyze who they are and how to neutralize them. And on top of *that*, I think his attitude is worse than last season. He doesn't seem to put in the effort or be as locked in as last season. I don't know if he's discouraged by his poor play, what people are saying about him, his relationships in the building - I don't know. But his mental isn't good like it was last season. It might be in part not having Mack Hollins with him. I think Mack was a good leader for that room. Bringing enthusiasm and spirit that uplifted guys and is lacking from our room this year. And while I think he was limited and agreed that we should try and upgrade from him from a talent standpoint - he was getting open better than most of the core we have now. Hindsight is 50/50. Last season we were in better shape than we are now bc of those things. But last season, we still didn't have enough to take us to the next level. There were times like those games you mentioned when things worked perfectly. But in the Playoffs, we rode on the back of James Cook and when we needed a strong passing game to get past the Chiefs - it wasn't enough. This season, we're even worse. We're nowhere.

I think you're really underestimating how truly bad this core is. Teams aren't producing with these guys. The announcers are practically laughing at how bad they are at getting open on a weekly basis. This isn't to say the coaching helps. But I don't think there's any amount of "creativity" that's going to make Keon Coleman, Curtis Samuel, Elijah Moore, and Tyrell Shavers get open when they simply can't create separation against even single man coverage.

You don't see a lack of talent? That's crazy. The insufficient creativity is a direct result of the lack of talent. You think they're throwing a million screens to Shakir bc they aren't "creative"? No. It's because no one is getting open downfield, including Shakir, and they have to do whatever they can to get the ball in his hands. How many games do posters like you have to see of Josh running for his life for 10+ seconds at a time, dying for someone to come open for a small window somewhere, before you admit we have a talent problem?

Not only that, but the Eagles play a more difficult schedule than we do. This is the easiest schedule we've had in years and we're still dropping a third of our games. The Eagles have yet to play their 9th game. But they have 3 wins over winning teams. We have 1. The teams they've beaten have a combined win loss record of 27-27. The combined win loss record of the teams we've beaten is 21-36. But beyond all of that, you can chalk their losses up to a single bad day at the office against the Giants and then a close loss to an 8-2 Broncos team. They have a Championship Caliber roster from top to bottom. Our roster had a major glaring flaw going into the season that has performed even worse than I expected. We're 2-3 in the last 5 games and have lost to the dredges of the league. To ignore that and the flaws of this roster and say "well we really beat up on (bad) teams and that's all I'm focusing on" is beyond looking at the glass half full. It's like looking at the glass as overflowing and ignoring the liquid pouring out of the massive hole in the glass.

If you only focus on the highs and ignore the lows, and losing to the Falcons and Dolphins are some *HUGE* lows - you're getting an incredibly biased and inaccurate portrait of a team. If your floor is the basement, especially if it's happening as often as a third of your games, looking only at the ceiling is an incredibly short sighted thing to do.

It's real simple and it's something i've been saying for weeks: Every team in the league knows the Bills want to beat you on the ground. In large part because we have no one that can win on the Outside with any sort of consistency (Kincaid was the only one, but he's in and out of the lineup), even against single coverage. So teams key in on the Run game, crowd the line of scrimmage, and force us to try and beat them with our dumpster fire WR core. When we run into teams where our Offensive Line and Cook are able to overpower them even when they're planning for it and we're able to put points up early - we're good. Even against good teams like Kansas City. If we can't and especially if the team gets a lead on us - we are physically incapable of catching up and winning a game through the air. It doesn't matter if it's a bad team like the Falcons or the Dolphins either. We're simply screwed if we need to rely on our pass catchers for anything. Ultimately, this team lives and dies by whether Cook and the OL goes crazy or not. Which makes it a week to week team. We could potentially beat a really good team or lose to a really bad team. Being one dimensional is nowhere to be if you want to compete in the NFL.

Thank you for this. I'm not trying to bend over backwards to defend Beane. And maybe this comes across that way (though not my intention), but the reports were: 1.) We were the highest bidder. 2.) The Jets and Dolphins didn't want to trade to us. 3.) The high offer was a 1st in 2027. 4.) The Dolphins price to move him was at least a 2026 1st, no one offered that, so he wasn't traded. I know this will prob make people roll their eyes, but it was never said that the Dolphins made it clear to Beane that they *would* trade him to us if we offered them a 1st in 2026 instead and that Beane made the conscious decision not to do that. It's altogether possible that we made the offer, were told to go F ourselves bc we were in the division, and that was that. That the wanting a 1st in 2026 was a separate point in generally explaining no one met that and thus he wasn't moved. Especially since it flies in the face of the initial report of them not wanting to help us. If it was our decision to turn down a 1st in 2026 - then they *were* willing to help us and that doesn't make sense. Again, not trying to bend over backwards to defend him (as I'm as annoyed by our core as anyone). But it feels like people are jumping to a conclusion that may be inaccurate.

You were exempt from having to do Hard Knocks if you were a team that made the Playoffs, up until a couple years ago. Which means the vast majority of Hard Knocks teams were trash to begin with. Not surprising that they didn't perform well. There's no "curse".

Shavers is a decent blocker and ST's player. But he's simply not an NFL level WR. Period. I know that particular play was more on the throw Josh wasn't able to step into. But Shavers rep is less than, as you pointed out. And that's a pretty regular thing. He's a guy who looks decent against other Practice Squad players and against DB's who are going to end up on the street in a week during the Pre-Season. But he really has no business getting reps on Offense when the real bullets are flying. And sadly, most of the guys above him are only marginally better than that.

I think that's wishful thinking. They can't provide less than 2/3 of Samuel, Shavers, and Moore (who they'll be replacing). But we had Palmer in this lineup and still had issues getting open. If we still had Kincaid on the field and added Palmer and Davis, i'd feel like that's a better situation. Still wasn't going to light the world on fire or have a "Hoecht like effect" on the Offense. But we'd be able to do more and possibly move from a passing game akin to eating out of a dumpster to getting fast food. But Palmer and Davis minus Kincaid? I think we're pretty much back to square one. Would love to be wrong, but Kincaid was our top passing option and the only guy who could get open with any sort of small consistency.

In 2017, ending the a Playoff Drought was a victory. In 2020, winning the division and winning a playoff game was a victory. Even last year, making it to the AFC Championship was a victory. But after all of the Division wins, all of the Playoff wins - winning the Division and even making it to the Championship is no longer a victory. That's the floor. Anything less than an AFC Championship is a disappointment. Not only are we looking at a roster where that seems *incredibly* unlikely - we're 2.5 games below the Patriots on the Division and we're dropping to teams like the friggin' Falcons and Dolphins. That's a major regression. Being unhappy about that isn't being "spoiled". The year is 2025. 2018 expectations no longer apply.

We have losses to the Falcons and Dolphins. With the makeup of this roster and the one dimensional facet of this Offense - there isn't a single game you can say we're likely to win or lose. If a team (any team) gets up on us early and/or are able to stop Cook, we are unable to do anything about it. We are not built to pass when we need it.