BillsFanForever19

Not even speculation. Just a "wouldn't it be cool if?" article playing Madden with team's rosters. They're a dime a dozen during the offseason because there's nothing to talk about and they're not worth the little bandwidth they're taking up. The sad part is fanbases read this stuff and take it seriously. When reality is that 99.99% of the people "rumored" to be available to be traded aren't available and will never be traded. Then the fanbases go "what is this GM doing? they could have had (so and so)" - based on meaningless articles like this or Twitter chatter.

You're looking at this the wrong way. It isn't that he didn't like him or he was unafraid of him getting picked. It was that he had multiple WR's ranked evenly. After the guys that went in the Top 10 and BTJ, it seemed everyone had differing opinions and it came down to what you were looking for. And it's possible to have a log jam of players ranked fairly evenly at a position and still think highly of those players. From Picks 28-37, 6 of those 9 picks were WR's. At Pick 28, he probably had a number of guys he was looking at and knew he could still land one of them at 32. And at 32, he had at least two guys he was looking at that were even, so he knew he could move to 33 and still land one. We were looking for a true X Outside WR. Not a slot, not a Tweener, a big X. So guys like Worthy, Pearsall, and McConkey weren't much of a consideration - but other teams were in need of those kind of inside or inside/outside guys, even though that's not what we were looking for. He most likely knew KC was drafting Worthy and when they got to 32, they definitely knew Carolina was taking Legette. Everyone knew that was coming. So he knew he could go to 33 and still land Coleman. Considering Ja'Lynn Polk was taken at 37 (the next X if teams were iffy on Mitchell and considered to go later than he did), Coleman wouldn't have lasted much longer even if we hadn't taken him. It's been pretty much said Coleman would have been the pick if we stood pat at 28 and would have been the pick at 32. Just because he was the 8th WR taken doesn't mean we had him as WR8 in the Draft and every team in the league did. Every team after the top 4 guys went probably had a different ranking and it just boiled down to the type you were in need of.

I don't think bringing him back was an option. We may very well have tried to. But if you're Araiza, are you going to return to us and compete for the job or get a fresh start, signing with the back to back Super Bowl Champions who had no real competition?

While I don't disagree with the concept of getting him better weapons, I do disagree with the idea of making Josh a pocket QB. Josh is not a pocket QB. His accuracy improved between College and the Pro's, against the odds. But he's not a Manning, Brady, Rodgers type. If you take his ability to get first downs with his legs away, you're getting a much lesser QB. I think that showed in the first half of the season. McDermott was banging it into his skull to run less and not risk injury. And the results were mixed. It wasn't until later in the season and into the Playoffs when he put that out of his head that we started going on a run.

That doesn't help. It doesn't open up the stuff beyond the paywall.

Because it's the Super Bowl ring ceremony? Should he not get his ring? Even if that's not what was happening, players are friends off the field regardless of the teams they're on.

I think that's an oversimplification. There was a time as recent as a few years ago where we weren't as privy about contracts and money would seemingly appear like magic. These days, especially this year, every single contract where money could be saved was accounted for. Every cut, restructure, extension, pay cut possible was talked ad nauseum when we were 54m over. And for that list, we did pretty much all of them that we were going to do or could do, before their money guarantee deadlines. There were only two cords that were left unpulled: an Oliver restructure that could save 3.9m and a Milano restructure could save 2.4m. Not sure why he didn't do Oliver, but I have to imagine they want to leave Milano's contract alone - coming off a catastrophic injury. And I think if either was something he wanted to do, he'd have done it when we were scrambling for any possible way to save money. Beyond that, the only things he can do are things he's never done before. Everyone likes to point out he left meat on the bone in Allen's contract. But he must have done that for a reason, as we needed it. If he didn't do it then, I don't see him doing it now. He's never restructured any deal twice in the same offseason. Outside of that, all he could do is restructure FA contracts from this year that he just signed. Another thing he's never done and extremely unlikely as he carefully terms each contract how he wants it when they sign. So the idea that we could do "pretty much anything" is a wild stretch. Could we do a signing? Sure. But anything? No - we can't swing something massive. Especially when we're already 15+m over for next season already.

From the sounds of Beane's presser and the timing of the trade, keeping Diggs wasn't really an option. He refused to answer whether or not Diggs had demanded a trade, which really says all that needs to be said there. The trade happened hours after Diggs made a "you sure about that?" tweet in reply to someone saying Allen would be fine without Diggs. It was an untenable situation. He had already started giving up on the team last season - voluntarily taking himself off the field on important 3rd downs and dropping passes he normally wouldn't, showing mental lapses. Keeping him against his will this year would have just provided more problems and probably even less quality of play. As for Troy Franklin - the guy fell to Pick 102 of Round 4 for a reason. If he were truly the player that you and a lot of people think he is, he wouldn't have lasted that long. He had already replaced Harty with Samuel and Sherfield with Hollins. Leaving 1 spot needing to be filled from last season. He viewed MVS as someone he could count on more in Year 1 than Franklin. As for OBJ over MVS - OBJ turns 32 years old this year. He has a *terrible* injury history and hasn't had so much as a 600 yard season since 2019. Even with all of those concerns, it's very possible and something I could easily see that OBJ would rather go to South Beach than Buffalo. From a locale standpoint and a tax standpoint. We can't force someone to sign here. And we may have been in on him and he simply wanted to go to Miami. Or he simply preferred MVS over OBJ. We'll never know. We shall see if the guys he chose work or you're right that it's not enough. But we weren't in the position this season to go apesh-t like you expected. And I'm not ready to say an offense with Allen at QB, Cook at RB, Kincaid, Coleman, Samuel, and Shakir as the top 4 passing options is the disgusting, awful, inexcusable failure you like to paint it as. Especially when you take into account where we were cap wise and roster wise before FA started. There's a lot of potential there. And with what we have going out in terms of production down the stretch from Diggs, Davis, Harty, and Sherfield - I can't imagine it could be much worse.

If it were major, they'd have said something by now and he wouldn't have been walking around on it the next day. It was worrisome when it was announced because there was very little info and I've seen multiple ACL tears where the guy limped to the sidelines, only to be done for the year. But, yeah, no news at this point and him being on the side is extremely good news. If it were an ACL tear, something would have come out about it by the next day at the latest.

At the time that he had to move Diggs, the FA WR pool had dried up. It boiled down to two options: 1.) Keep Diggs and the cancer that was getting worse or 2.) Move on from him knowing replacing him with a like level talent was probably not going to happen. Clearly, he felt we had to move on from Diggs and that even if we couldn't land a talent level like his, it was still better for the team than keeping him. Can an argument be made that he should have pulled the cord sooner? That would be a fair argument to be made. And had he done that, he probably would have worked things differently. Probably would have went for a cheaper inside option (or maybe we would have drafted one) than Samuel and a more expensive Outside option (and maybe one less) than MVS, Hollins, and Claypool. But your trade options aren't really options. They're Twitter "rumors" that 99.9% of the time go nowhere. Many have re-signed with their team already, are in the long term plans of their team to be re-signed, or are simply not available (For example - Seattle has turned down multiple trade overtures for Metcalf this offseason). Like trading into the Top 10, you may want it, but the other team needs to want it as well. It's not as simple as "just get it done". Ultimately, we went into this offseason 54m over the cap with 21 FA's. We had to cut or trade 8 more players on top of that 21. 29 bodies either out the door or needing to be re-signed. We needed to replace 2 starting WR's (and 4/5 or 5/6 of the entire core), 1 starting IOL, 1 starting DE (and 3/5 of the entire core), 1 starting DT (and 4/5 of the entire core), 2 starting Safeties (and the entire core), the 2nd RB to Cook, and a myriad of other depth pieces. We pulled every release, extension, pay cut, and re-structure cord possible. Save for 2 - Oliver and Milano re-structure. And Milano he probably doesn't want to do coming off a major injury. You like to bring up another Allen re-structure - but if he wanted to take more, he'd have done it then. He's never redone a contract twice in the same offseason. As it is, with everything he's done that you say isn't enough, we only have 7.5m in cap space. Which is barely more than we'll need for the Practice Squad and in season spending. The choices he made were what he felt was the best moves available to him. Sacrifices were going to have to be made this season with the position we were in. It's as simple as that.

Ah, I see that now. Thanks for correcting me. To this point, all I had seen regarding him was: I still don't see him having a higher ceiling than the Practice Squad though. Too many injuries (including 2 ACL tears between College and the NFL), a complete failure and abandonment from his Drafting team, showed nothing on his second chance change of scenery team - that never elevated him and he wasn't poached from there by anyone, and is now a "futures" guy on his third team in less than a year and will be two years removed from his last snap at the start of the season. He's Andy Isabella from last season if Isabella had a terrible medical record and has even more competition than Isabella had last year. Just like Isabella, I expect to hear Hamler's name all Pre-Season from fans. And even if he has a strong Pre-Season like Isabella, I see him still being cut and easily put on the PS.

Hamler is only that high amongst the fan base. And it's just because he used to be a 2nd Round Pick and he's fast. Reality is he's totally in that Shorter, Shavers, Isabella list - and probably below one or two of them. He's nowhere near in a league of his own that many notches above them. At this point in his career, he needs to REALLY impress to even earn a PS spot. Doesn't seem like he's doing that, to this point. Guys like Shavers and Isabella probably have a leg up having a year in the system already and nowhere NEAR the injury prone history. It always seemed clear who the top 6 were. And if the reports out of OTA's are to believed, it's getting even clearer.

He's wasn't just the consensus WR1 in that class - he was considered the best WR prospect coming out of College, maybe ever. He was Marvin Harrison Jr. 10 years before Marvin Harrison Jr. A "can't miss" prospect.

I think the problem with Sammy is that he was so supremely gifted that he never really had to put in the work at Clemson. He could show up and just smoke College athletes. In the NFL, it's a different ball game. He could still play at a moderate level skating by on just pure talent because he was just THAT talented. But to be what he was expected to be coming into the league, he'd have to really work and dedicate himself. And that just wasn't in him. He tells stories of showing up to practice still under the influence from the night before. You can't do that and expect to be the best at your position at the NFL level. Reading that article, it's actually kind of amazing that he performed as well as he did in the NFL with what he was dealing with mentally and physically and with his approach to NFL football.

No context besides "lower body injury", "limping", and "did not return" could mean anything from just a bruise all the way to out for the year. Guess we'll know more tomorrow. *Really* hope it's nothing. If it is major, get Hunter Renfrow on the phone, stat.

Not a great look for Shorter or Hamler, who are both on the outside looking in as it is.

You act as though we didn't go into this offseason *54 million* over the cap - with 21 Free Agents, even before we traded or cut 8 more. I don't know how you look at that and go "don't care, big splash on a single WR when they're going for historically high prices or he's failed us". You can argue he shouldn't have put us in that situation in the first place and that's a fine opinion to have. But that doesn't change the fact that's the exact situation we were in and that meant any one big spending move couldn't work with everything we had to do. As it is, we paid out our biggest veteran FA contract this offseason from another team to a WR (Curtis Samuel) and our top Draft Pick was spent on a WR (Keon Coleman). So that's our two biggest investments this offseason put into the WR position. I'm sorry you wanted more, but it simply was not in the cards this year.

I don't disagree that Sammy was Drafted to a team that was, as you say, "a rudderless ship" that was wasting his talent. But he spent ages 25-29 playing with Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, and Aaron Rodgers in winning cultures. If it was just a matter of Sammy being in the wrong place, he'd have lived up to expectations in one of those places and would still be playing instead of bouncing around and being out of the league before he turned 30. There was a lot more to it than just being Drafted to the wrong team.

No, I'm definitely not correlating alcohol and substance issues with character. There are plenty of good people out there that addiction has gotten it's claws into. There's also functioning addicts, like Poyer that you mentioned and Von Miller that are able to still put in the work and be mentally in the game. Unfortunately, it didn't seem that was the case for Watkins. His demons, whether it be addiction or trauma (which surely led to addiction) had their claws in him too deep. He was talented enough to still play at a moderate NFL level, even with the things he was dealing with. But he was never able to live up to the expectations on pure talent alone. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2889029-what-sammy-watkins-believes

There were the injuries. But the bigger problem was that he struggled with substance abuse issues and wasn't mentally approaching the game the right way. Beane takes flack for putting so much emphasis on character and work ethic. But Watkins is proof that you can have all the talent in the world, but if you don't have your head screwed on straight - it won't matter.

I don't see us keeping just 5 this season. That was an anomaly predicated on us having an abundance of Defensive Lineman to keep. That's not an issue this season. Every other season under McDermott and Beane, we've either kept 6 or 7. I see the number being 6 this year. And yes, with the amount of long time core Special Teamers we've lost this year (Tyler Matakevitch, Siran Neal, Dane Jackson, Tyrel Dodson, and more) - I would keep him for Special Teams alone. And it's a massive reason why he was targeted and acquired so quickly in FA by Beane. But he brings more than just that.

Nothing major. If there's a bottom of the roster guy we're cutting anyways that someone will offer a 6th in exchange for a 7th or something, sure. But the 53 is pretty clear and I don't really see anyone that we won't need that someone's going to offer us anything for. As for us trading for someone, I wouldn't expect it before the season starts. Maybe someone mid season if injuries happen or a position group is underperforming.

If you're a WR being added to another teams 53 after being cut, it's almost always bottom of the depth chart to fill out the roster and play Special Teams.

Again, though, you're making the one exception the rule. One time in all of the guaranteed signings doesn't make it likely. It just means it isn't a total impossibility.