Ed_Formerly_of_Roch

They didn't get that schedule. That schedule was predetermined a long time ago. Whomever finished in 2nd place in the NFL South got that schedule which just happened to be Tampa. Having an 11-5 record makes it easier for their SOS to be at the top as most teams they are playing have a worse record. Even the division winner Saints only had one more win than they did. And they get to play the NFC East which also helps and by finishing in 2nd avoid playing Green Bay. Instead they get to play the Bears who had one of the worse 2nd place records in all the divisions, only one worse was Giants who BTW they also get to play.

Actually 4 out of 6. Would be hard for it to be 5 since only 4 teams in AFC East!! LOL Not all that shocked to see all the AFC teams at the top as we all are playing pretty much the same schedule. NFC South, No without Brees shouldn't be that hard along with Atlanta and Carolina, only tough one is Tampa. Similar with AFC South, Houston and Jax are a mess, Tenn and Indy both looking good, though Indy a big question mark with Wentz. Kind of lucked out too in playing Pitt who won AFC north as feel both Cleveland and Baltimore are the better teams. SOS does always make me chuckle some as teams with good records are always going to be near the top and those with bad records near the bottom. For that reason does surprise me some to see Atlanta near the top, but see NFC South does get to play NFC East plus our division, plus two 4th place finishers.

Any team can pluck him away from the Bills at roster cutdown day. Just once he's placed on practice squad, he belongs to Bills for the year. Last two seasons, no other teams grabbed him, and they will have a 3rd shot at him come early September. It's also possible the Bills will feel the same way as you do and just cut him, that will help his career alot! Man did you walk into this one!! LOL Even the guy we signed still spent one or two years on PS. Likely yes you're right 95% won't make it, but without program teams likely wouldn't save a normal PS place for them either. So it does benefit a small few and is good marketing too.

Yeah Dean is the only guy left of Bills FA that either hasn't signed back with Buffalo or gone elsewhere. Bringing this guy in may be a move to tell Dean this is our offer, take or we're moving on.

I just made a similar post in another thread. There's still very little idea how many people will be in the stands this year, will they get revenue from pre-season game so can't see a huge predicted hike. Like this year, may be higher than projected, but not crazy high either.

I wonder if they tried to take an extra $1 mil off the base and add to signing bonus. Would have added an extra half mil in 2022 to dead cap, but may have been worth it for this year. Could be teams have been told still too much uncertainty where things will end up for the 2022 cap number as no idea if there will be fans in stands all season and how many and will there be pre-season games too

The other guy who I wouldn't completely rule out as a return guy is Wade, kind of a wild card. Don't know if there's some equivalent experience in Rugby that Wade is used to seeing 11 guys charging down on him while he tries to catch an oblong shaped rotating object? If so that could be his role. Maybe the past two seasons, that's all he's been doing during practice, fielding kicks? Now admittedly I just blew up my entire argument about having an extra roster slot for Breida as now using a slot up for Wade.

IMO the Bills are in a different situation this year than prior years in that the team is trying to win now in 2021, so need to not do anything to weaken 2021 roster. The Bills have 8 D-lineman that contributed to the 2020 teams success, plus now add Star back in plus the new guy Obada. Drafting Addision's replacement now adds 11, no way they carry 11 D-lineman on their 53 so that means cutting someone to make room for the rookie, the likely names would be Johnson or Zimmer who also BTW are still on cheap contracts too. I have a hard time seeing a rookie and maybe a lower drafted rookie at that coming in and being better than guys with 2 + years NFL experience and already experienced in this defense in 2021. Would the rookie potentially help the team more in around 2023, sure, but they are in a win now mode. As far as Addison's replacement, they may have just signed him in Obada if he is as good as many here think. Just like Daryl Williams this year, they could sign him to an extension prior to next year start of free agency. And likely if he doesn't pan out, then they look to sign the top FA edge rusher next year as likely have money then. Maybe they even do both. If you want to pick a D-lineman with a late pick, 5th round or lower could chance placing him on the PS, but not if drafted any higher. To me you want to slot your draft picks in positions where they can add to improvement of the roster in 2021 without immediate weakening the roster by cutting someone, to me that would be: #2 CB, depth at CB, O-line(Backups only play due to injury, and maybe LB. So agree with OP in that can't see all 7 picks making the roster, but would also like to keep three picks in first three rounds. I'd more go for something like trade 1st and 2nd round picks to move up to around 21st in 1st round, but also get around a 21st pick in 3rd round so we'd now have a higher 1st and 2 later round 3rds. Then would try and take my two 5th, plus one of 3rds to move up higher in 3rd round to around 20th. Draft point chart validates I'm not in the weeds with value of picks. Overall then picking 21st in round one and 20th and 21st in round three, plus still have 6th and 7th rounder. Those are safe picks to dump to PS with little worry. If I were Beane I'd try and make a couple moves for that.

Think one of the issues is roster slots on game day. If McKenzie is going to be the return guy, that potentially frees up an extra roster spot that they could keep three RB's active on Sundays. Similar this new TE they signed, sounds like he provides everything Gilliam, Smith, and Kroft gave the Bills, so that also could free up one more slot on Sundays. Again was about roster slots on Sundays, wasn't an easy way to may three slots for RB's available without McD feeling they were short changing another position.

When I look at the list of Bills FA on March 17th plus those who were released, he only name left that I hope still signs here is Dean Marlowe. The rest have either been replaced or the person gone was nothing that can't easily be replaced based on 2020 level of play. i.e. Josh Norman types. That is pretty impressive on Beane's part!

OK so there is a connection! Forgot about him. LOL

Read an article last year about who was the other team that changed names fairly recently, but article talked about how it took them close to two years to decide on new name. There was much to study and then things like gear being lined up both for players and sale, etc.

So if he's only been in league 4 years, was he even in Carolina yet when McD and Beane left? Not that facts would changes the jokes and comments about it here.

Yeah so as long as Pegula has $6 mil in his pocket, he can sign everyone (and if he doesn't he'll just drill another well), but from a cap standpoint, will only impact the cap by less than $2mil.

I read a week or so ago, with the Bills drafting lower and no 4th round pick, likely will only need about $1.5 mil to sign draft picks as likely anyone drafted after the 3rd round won't count against the top 51.

Maybe Haack is a also a better holder than Bojo. There were about 1/2 dozen times on field goal attempts laces were in the wrong direction, some were still made, some were missed. I actually question if that factored into the Bills letting Bojo go? Missing field goals due to bad holds likely could cost losing a game more than a couple yards less net on punts.

So was the difference due to defense stopping the opposing team or our offense moved the ball consistently therefore limiting the opposing teams time with the ball? I'll guess the second one!

May as well take lessons from the best. It seems every year there's one player who was an active participant throughout training camp and pre-season, all of a sudden 2 days before roster cut down day are reported injured and on IR. Last year was Hodgins though think he did actually have surgery, in 2019 the mystery injury was to J Croom. Maybe Pegula's daughter hurt him too much.

By my calculation Hughes only took 60.5% of the snaps, the most of all the D-line players. Addison was slightly lower at 58% and Oliver at 56%. Hughes had a little higher number in 2019, 65%. But agree overall, you don't want Hughes playing too much. Do agree too that Epenesa will see a much higher snap count and think he'll look much better too. Seems the Bills overall thinking on the D-Line is we're not going to have a superstar, but will roll 8 or 9 deep of good dependable players that will wear your line down due to our players being fresher. That worked pretty well in 2019, not so well in 2020, though much of that issue may have been due to missing Star in the middle.

Agree, the biggest hole the team has right now is no kick returner, so drafting a guy who has a fair amount of experience as a return guy would fill that need. I'm sure many here are underwhelmed in our TE pickup, but considering we were the 2nd highest team that went with 4 WR, can see the logic in not investing huge $$'s in a TE when they still do have a guy who could develop into a good one in Knox. Knox has struggled, but he certainly has some traits that can't be taught like size, strength and speed. Likely want one more year to see what he can do as the #1 TE before ready to give up on him. Having said that, they do need a decent 5th WR so they can go 4 wide even in games when one of the top 4 is out injured.

The 2021 Bills roster is basically the same as the 2020 team, they haven't lost much at all in FA, but haven't added much either, maybe a small upgrade in Sanders. They just didn't have the $$ available to make the changes and improvements that many fans were hoping to see. They do have a year more experience under their belt and last years rookies now are a year older so that helps some too. The Bills are ready to complete for a Super Bowl now. What worries me though is replacing vets with rookies may actually make the team weaker in the short term for the 2021 season. O-line doesn't worry me much as the starters tend to play the entire game barring injury. I wouldn't worry about a rookie WR either if they take one as their starters are strong to begin with. They don't have a true big nickel so drafting a rookie would be an improvement there. But defensive line may be the weakest area of the roster and I don't see that adding a rookie drafting 30th or in lower rounds will help. You stated Johnson (ugghhh) I'd take Johnson over a rookie drafted at 30th in 2021. Maybe by the 2nd or 3rd year the rookie would be the better choice, but not so sure it helps for this coming season. Will see Beane may still pick up a mid level FA edge rusher to help.

Understand, but then who are you talking about? My response was just stating that unlikely you'll get anyone to the PS from last years D line. While not that good, they all were good enough to not pass thru.

Yeah but you're not going to slip a 2nd or 3rd rounder to the PS. Not sure either if Phillips, Zimmer, or Johnson would have any PS eligibility left assuming we are going back to the old PS rules which not sure I heard what the plans are around that? Even if they are eligible, not sure they could slip through either without getting claimed. The Bills have 7 draft picks this year, assuming 5 make the roster, not sure they have five slots for them that won't involve releasing a player who by week 1 is considerably better than a rookie. Can a spot on O-Line (maybe two) LB,CB, S, Other positions they have pretty strong backups.

The other thing that caused issues last year, going into training camp I was kind of happy that the Bills had very little turnover of their starting lineup from the year prior. For a season without mini camps and no pre-season, figured that would help them more than other teams. With a 13-3 record, maybe it did? The only new starters they had were Diggs and Klein. At the beginning of camp they still had the same O-line, (Spain was projected starter) DeMarco was back at fullback, same starters on the D-line and secondary. While overall 20 or 22 starters back was pretty good, but by the time week 1 rolled around, while all 4 starters were back on the D-line, it did have 3 new subs, plus Phillips missed most of 2019 and a rookie. Add to that as you stated Star opting out caused even more churn. Don't think they ever really found a true replacement for him and they ended up for the 1st half of the season playing musical chairs with the 1 technique. Eventually they settled on Butler, but he was far from perfect. Throw in that Murphy became a non-factor by the second half and you had a mess there. So do agree both with having Star back and pretty much no new faces will help. Will need an improvement from Addison though. Wonder if they will tweak the defense some to use Klein as 3rd LB more in passing down and let him just blitz from all over, but that means no 5th CB on the field or only 3 down lineman? Yeah agree with drafting Star's eventual replacement, but does worry me some to find a roster spot for him this year likely mean cutting either Phillips or Zimmer. While neither is a game changer, they still may be better than a 2nd/3rd round rookie. Maybe the answer is draft the guy, then someone step on his toe in the pre-season so they can hide him on IR all year or at least till late in the season if someone gets hurt.

I've often read that when looking at the draft pick point chart, picks one year out are worth one round less. i.e. points for 1st overall pick in 2022 = 1st pick in round 2 So based on that giving up the 30th pick for next years first would be the points equivalent of a 2nd round pick, plus as the OP suggested a 3rd this season. However normally when dealing with future picks, it involves multiple picks, like if Miami traded for Watson, they'd likely be giving up both their 1st's this season plus maybe next years 1st and 2nd which wouldn't be worth as many draft points as a team trading three 1st round picks this season plus this years 2nd. Plus it usually involves trading up close to the top of the draft. So as the OP suggested trading the 30th overall for a 1st next year and a 3rd this year; Can't see that happening either! Too much unknown in how the team will do next year, will it be a top 10 pick or the #25 overall. In multiple pick trades, teams willing to take that risk as they are getting lots of picks, but as this was proposed, highly doubtful.