BillsFanForever19

Yeah, I knew when this got posted it would just be a bunch of snarky McDermott posts. Personally, I like it. He's always so close to the vest and careful. "One step at a time, one game at a time". "Playoff Caliber" during the season and "Championship Caliber" only after we make the postseason. To hear him say something like "it's not a matter of if we win the Super Bowl, but WHEN" - that's an uncharacteristic, galvanizing statement to make to the team.

For the millionth time, Derrick Henry is not coming to the Buffalo Bills. You can fantasize what it would be like all you want. Would it be good? Yeah, it'd be good. But I don't see the point in fantasy. We're not spending that kind of Money on RB2. Even if he is cheaper bc of his age and the market, it still won't be cheap enough to justify it. And Derrick Henry is not going to choose to go somewhere that he isn't the unquestioned starter. Take a look at any article that prognosticates Henry's next team. You never see Buffalo on there. It doesn't make sense any way you slice it besides fantasy of what it would be like. He's going to Baltimore. A contender that will play him in the same role he played in Tennessee. He's going to get at the very least 4.5-5m a year from them. In the slim event he didn't go there, he'll go somewhere else where he's the lead Back. You know what all those big names RB's on the market also means? It means there's a LOT of teams that have openings for Starter. And if you think Derrick Henry isn't high on the lists of all of the teams that need a RB1 - you're kidding yourself. Money is tight. We can get under the cap. But that money will need to be used on WR, DE, DT, and S. Not to mention the million and one depth holes we have. We're not putting 5m (on the low end btw) into a 2nd RB when we already have a Pro Bowl RB who was 4th in the league in Rushing last season, when we have a million more important, harder to fill holes than the dime a dozen RB position, and we don't have much money to begin with.

Or..... We have Cook. We get Johnson back cheaper. We Draft a guy late on Day 3. Done.

*A* single, independent Packers reporter asking a question to himself two years ago is your "can't even make this up" smoking gun? Here's the difference - Micah Hyde wasn't the best CB on his team and just randomly got switched to Safety, years later, while still performing very well at CB. He played BOTH CB and Safety in College and was drafted as a guy who could be either or. After his Rookie season, they realized he was better served at Safety than he was at CB. https://hawkeyesports.com/roster/micah-hyde/

Yeah, I see the confusion. I accidentally wrote Benford instead of Douglas on that one post. I meant Douglas. The result is the same though. He may be turning 30. But he doesn't have the usage and wear and tear of a standard 30 year old CB. He was a late bloomer who's stepped into his own as a high performing CB in just the last few seasons. He's playing his best Football now. As a Starting CB. He's our best CB right now. We wouldn't move our #1 CB come Week 1 to Safety, a lesser position that pays less, to move our #4 Outside CB last season to Starting CB. And I can't disagree with you more that he couldn't do better than what we'd offer him as a Safety elsewhere next season. You don't move CB's who are performing at a high level to Safety. No agent would accept Safety money for a CB who can make good CB money elsewhere in a year. That's Agent malpractice. This scenario would have him at the very least, testing the market next season rather signing an extension this season.

Benford absolutely isn't moving either. But I see no possible way he's going to sign an extension as a Safety when he's set to either be paid more than he's being paid now as a Starting CB here or a Starting CB elsewhere. His agent would laugh in our faces if we offered him Safety money and say "come back to us with Starting CB money or we'll get it elsewhere next year".

I highly doubt it. As someone who frequently watches One Bills Live - Tasker does more talking out of his butt than he does making sense. I spend way more time thinking "what the hell is he talking about?" than I do thinking "this guy's cooking". He's also CONSTANLY mixing up players names. And Brandon Beane isn't talking trade secrets with him. It makes no sense that Douglas would choose to take Safety money this close to his next Contract, when he's set to cash in on Starting CB money. Nor are we paying a Safety Starting CB money to play Safety. It makes even less sense to take our best healthy CB and move him to a lesser position and then take a guy who couldn't even beat out Dane Jackson last season for Outside CB #3 and start him at the more important position. Literally nothing about this makes sense and like I said, Tasker is a complete buffoon on the air.

And in turn you're halting his development as an ascending Starter by replacing him. That would be the tossing aside you're saying you didn't say.

Yeah, it's pretty clear that if you read between the lines of what McDermott said in Pressers at the end of the year that both Hyde and Poyer are gone. He demands a lot from the Safety position. Unfortunately, between Hyde not being REMOTELY the same player he was returning from the neck injury and then Poyer, who had shown some decline the year before, falling off a cliff last year - he got little to nothing from that side of the ball all season. Hyde's a Free Agent. Even if he doesn't retire, which seems likely, we won't be bringing him back. And releasing Poyer can save us cap space. My guess is we re-sign Taylor Rapp, who I felt was addition by subtraction when one of them was out of the lineup last season, and Cam Lewis. Then we'll Draft a guy, quite possibly 2 (as it wouldn't surprise me to see us move on from Hamlin too) between Round 2 and the end of the Draft. We probably won't have the Safety core of Hyde and Poyer at their prime - but we can't do a lot worse than what they provided us last season.

Then what did you mean when you said...

Definition of 'stalwart' is reliable. Benford played well, at times extremely well. I think you should go back and watch some of the film on him bc he was often shut down on his side. At 23 years old and on a pennies on the dollar 6th Round Rookie Contract, he's been on a solid ascension with room to get even better. You don't mess with that development. I don't think you're going to find many people who agree with you that we need an Upgrade from him and that we should toss him aside.

We are not moving high performing Starting CB's to Safety. You simply do NOT do that. The only time you move a CB to Safety is with aging Elite CB's (ala Rod Woodson, Charles Woodson, Troy Vincent, Patrick Peterson) who have the skills to transition and extend their career. Or guys that were Drafted out of College that played both CB and Safety (like Micah Hyde in GB). A high functioning CB - you KEEP at CB. Safety is a much easier and much cheaper to replace than a CB. And CB's don't WANT to switch to Safety. It's a tougher position on the body that pays FAR less. You know what would happen if we approached Douglas to play Safety? He'd laugh in our face when approached for an extension. He wouldn't re-sign here and be paid to be a Starting CB at Starting CB money on another team after this season. My favorite post i've ever seen on this subject was someone who hypothesized we could move him to Safety and save money by paying him as a Sadety. In what world would Douglas choose to do that?! And why on earth would we move one of our 2 best CB's to Safety to move a lesser player in Elam to start at a more important position? Like... what? Douglas and Benford are unquestioned starters at CB. It's not happening. And guys like White and Elam do not have the ability to do it well. White isn't a good tackler. And Elam, though a better tackler, would need to be even better at Zones than he is already failing at the CB position. The switching any of our CB's to Safety is a completely short sighted, nonsense discussion.

Edit: I read this wrong at first. I thought it was saying Douglas and Benford would be starting which isn't crazy at all. But yeah.... this is absolutely crazy talk. I think Tasker might have got names mixed up again. Something he's notorious for doing every time I tune in. He's also notorious for saying things that make me go "wtf?" and are way off base. This isn't going to happen and doesn't make sense for a LARGE number of reasons.

The funny thing about this is that you read the doom and gloom of that article and the fact is: 2024 New Orleans Saints - 36m Over the Cap 2024 Buffalo Bills - 41m Over the Cap But the big difference is we have the core pieces of a Contender in place. They have a terrible team to begin with and have to tear it down even more. Plus side, it's not like they're going to get much worse.

Was really digging the first 2 Picks. But there's absolutely no way we're spending a Day 2 pick on RB.

I don't think it's completely impossible. But I think Reader is going to be too expensive compared to Jones. I don't see a scenario where we cannot pay Jones what he's asking for or commands and then will pay more for Reader. Spotrac's value (though never entirely accurate) has Daquan Jones as a 6.9m annual average. They list DJ Reader at a 14.9m annual average. I think that's a pretty high prediction for him and I don't think he'll cost that much. But he's still going to cost much more than Jones.

Are you aware what a Year 1 rebuild or soft rebuild is? It doesn't mean you're building your team around your Rookie QB with the best humanly possibly in Year 1. It means you're rebuilding your cap, filling holes with cheaper, younger players, so that in the coming years you can have a new team and go out and get the things you need - working around the young cheap players that worked out in Year 1 to build a contender. You ever looked at Josh Allen's WR's in Year 1? Here's what he was working with: Zay Jones, Robert Foster, Isaiah McKenzie, Da'Mari Scott, Ray Ray McCloud, and Deonte Thompson And did I say we shouldn't start Rookies or that championship teams don't do that? No, I didn't. But there's a difference between starting some Rookies or young players and saying "we've got to fill half of our WR core this season and 1 of the guys we have is a redshirt Rookie already.... let's fill out ALL 3 of the rest of the holes there with exclusively Rookies!". I've maintained from the beginning that we Draft our WR2 in Round 1 and that we take another in the mid Rounds. But that all 4 of our WR's not named Stefon Diggs and Khalil Shakir should have zero Regular Season experience is not a realistic idea for a Championship contending team. We have to have at least 1 of those 3 guys being a known commodity. Bc Rookies are complete unknowns, especially in Year 1 when they're learning. They can hit and be great like Puka Nacua. Or they can bust like Quentin Johnston or Treylon Burks. We could double down and end up with the WR equivalent of what happened to us at DE. Again, it's one thing to say we can't afford a big ticket FA (which is the truth) and that we should Draft a guy or two. It's another to say we can't afford ANYONE. Or that if you aren't getting the big ticket WR, you're wasting your time. Neither are true. We can afford a vet and whether you think we should or not - I assure you Beane is going to. There is close to a zero chance that with the way Beane and McDermott look at Roster Building that they're going to replace Davis, Sherfield, and Harty ALL with Rookies. Be glad we'll do 2 of the 3 that way. It's humanly possible. But that doesn't make it a "real" possibility. It's an EXTREMELY unrealistic possibility. One that only you, other fans who despise him, and clickbait media outlets bang the table for. But it's simply not happening this season. And Pittman? That's an even bigger joke. He's not going anywhere. He'll either be extended or Franchised before he hits the market. In the surprising event that he does? He's getting an INSANE contract to be a team's #1. And you can try and manufacture that contract to work for us any way you want. It's still going to be too much for us this year and ESPECIALLY for years to come. And if we were to magically find a way to figure Pittman in - say goodbye to the WR's you love so much in Round 1. There is zero scenario where we put forth the kind of money it would take for Pittman and be able to turn around and use a 1st Rounder at WR. We'd be essentially ignoring everything else on the team - when we have 5 holes at Starting DE, DT, and S along with the first DT off the bench, who basically gets a starters amount of reps. We're gonna do some exciting stuff here at that position. But the reality is in between what you want and what the guy I quoted above you wants..... (Continued below) This is true to an extent. Yes, the idea that we can't afford ANYONE and have to Draft every hole at WR (or elsewhere) isn't true. We can afford a veteran and we're going to get one. But we cannot afford any of the many big ideas you have. Cover 1 doesn't even talk about the Curtis Samuel level WR's, let alone the Pittman's or Evans'. Like I said, the truth is somewhere between what the guy you're replying to is saying and what you're constantly posting about. We'll be able to dig out of 41m over the cap to sign some guys to fill the MANY holes we have. But because of having that many holes to fill and the fact that in any given Draft, there's less than 32 players you can count on to Start - we are going to have to be judicious in our approach. No massive spending on any one position. Yes, we did keep signing vets last season. But they were all of a certain price point. And as bad of a position as we were in last year, we're in even a worse position this year - cap wise and roster wise. So look at last season as the benchmark on the type of moves we'll make. As Beane said in his Presser, there will be no big splashes this season. And that we'll be "shopping in a lot of the same stores we were last season". It will be guys who won't break the bank, most on 1 year deals, guys we can convince to come cheaper or will have to come cheaper bc of circumstance. You're going to get your 1st Round WR for WR2. And you'll get another later in the Draft. And you'll get a vet. And that's going to be exciting enough. But your head is absolutely in the clouds though when you start talking about Trading Diggs, acquiring a guy like Pittman, and Drafting 2 WR's in the first 45-60 picks.

The Bills only carried 5 WR's last season. And that lack of depth was a mistake that bit us. Especially at Outside WR. 5 WR's was an anomaly. Done to keep extra Defensive Lineman we had under contract (something we will not have this season). Under McDermott here is the number we've gone into Week 1 with for each season: 2023 - 5 2022 - 7 2021 - 7 2020 - 6 2019 - 6 2018 - 7 2017 - 6 I absolutely do not see us carrying anything less than 6 this season. Shorter will be on the 53 and I already have him factored in. Isabella and Hamler are Practice Squad guys. Hamler is on his 3rd team in less than a year. Like Isabella before him, there's a bust stink on him at this point that a good Pre-Season will not change when it comes to teams signing players from other teams to their 53. Futures/Reserve signings are on the level of UDFA's. Guys you bring into Camp and maybe they earn a spot on the Practice Squad. But former 2nd Round Picks or not - they are nothing that Beane is counting on when filling out the Roster. Noah Brown was the 4th WR on the Texans last season, behind Nico Collins, Tank Dell, and Robert Woods. So while I can see some logic in someone signing Reynolds to be an unquestioned WR2 - I don't understand thinking Brown isn't a possibility. And as for Reynolds, everyone sort of agrees his figure on Spotrac is a little high. And it's less than insane to think he may be interested in playing in Buffalo as no less than Outside WR3, maybe even getting a share of WR2 reps, as the Rookie is not guaranteed to immediately hit the ground running. You quote Green Bay to make your argument, but there's one major difference there - Green Bay was in Year 1 of Jordan Love and in the middle of a rebuild. They overachieved and reached the Playoffs yes, but there's a big difference between what a team competing for a Championship will risk and what a rebuilding team will risk. It worked out for Green Bay, but there's no saying 4 Rookies (with Shorter a redshirt Rookie) will work the same for us. As for the money, again, with the jump in Salary Cap - add 11m extra to whatever the moves we would have done to get to under would get us. That's enough for Brown and another player. You can say we should draft 3 Rookies and call it a day. But there's no way Beane doesn't bring in at least 1 veteran though. We'll Draft 2 within the first 5 Rounds for the 53, but there won't be 3.

I wish people would look more into these types of guys. We'll be taking 1 WR in Round 1 and then I expect Beane to address starters elsewhere for our next 2 picks. Outside possibility he trades back into the Bottom of Round 3 from Round 4 if someone is sticking out. But imo that's the soonest Beane would possibly complete a double dip. These are the types of guys we'd be considering there with our 2nd WR pick.

And not only do we have Shakir that works out of the Slot, but Dalton Kincaid as well. Anyone who is a Day 1 or Day 2 pick out of the slot is completely out of the equation.

Agreed. If the Colts don't extend Pittman by the Franchise Tag deadline, he's for sure getting tagged. The Colts are 79.2m under the cap. Pittman is a 26 year old budding Superstar, the #1 WR to a Rookie QB entering Year 2. And they can afford him. Like I said with Higgins, teams don't let go of their most important pieces unless they literally have no other choice. I'd be downright shocked if he went anywhere. In the small chance that he did, it wouldn't be here.

I'm just trying to get him to appreciate what'll be under the Tree on Christmas morning. All he ever talks about day and night is a PS5, the newest iPhone, and that top of the line Gaming Laptop. There will be some pretty nice gifts for the kid to open. But money's been tight for mommy and daddy this year and he's going to be pretty unhappy when he's unwrapping them and the best we can possibly do doesn't come close to his expectations.

I don't think that's an unpopular opinion. But the talk of Henry is a waste of time. He was the #2 Rusher in the NFL last season. He's not going to go somewhere where he isn't the unquestioned Starter. And when you have a Pro Bowl RB in house already, you're not going to pay what it costs for Henry to have a 2nd Pro Bowl RB - even if he wanted to. Doubly so when you don't have any money and have a ton of other holes. There's a reason it's not talked about anywhere but on this board. It doesn't really make sense for either party. And Baltimore's probably already asking for the measurements for his new Purple jersey.

It doesn't matter when Baltimore, who is looked at as a bigger contender than us, is under the cap, wants him desperately, and will offer him the unquestioned Starter role, is in the mix. Even if Beane wanted to pay his price, which I doubt having Cook in house and still being 41m over the cap, he'd still choose Baltimore over us.