dave mcbride

Disagree about Houston. Allen threw three passes that should have been easy picks but were dropped. He did not play well and the Bills were lucky to get to OT.

This is a great post. I agree that this defense needs that CB who can play press and coverage. Otherwise, when you're up against a team like KC, Mahomes and co. will bleed you to death on crossers and the like. Which is what happened. Not having Tre was huge, although of course losing Honey Badger was huge for KC. Their pass D was a sieve without him.

??? You have to subscribe to read it in the first place. I actually read it (a friend emailed me the full text) and it's pretty interesting. They talk to a lot of people at all levels about the three QBs.

Denver went out and got good corners this past offseason and their D gave KC a ton of trouble. I'm down with a CB at 25 IF of course it's a player they believe and have a high grade on. If they're tied at WR and CB in their evaluation for BPA, I'm taking CB.

They're all good. The thing about Herbert is that he was elite from the get-go. Burrow is really, really good too. It's nice to have four elite QBs in the AFC. One comment: Allen was shaky in year one, but his skill set was still visible. He was also a LOT better in year two than his qb rating shows. Herbert was great in year one. Mahomes was great from the first game he played (finale of his rookie season). And Burrow was very good in year one. With regard to last year's picks, I'd say that Lawrence was shaky but also that his skill set was very visible. He's going to be a good QB. Zach Wilson ... looks like he might not pan out. He had a couple of decent outings, but a lot of terrible ones. Davis Mills may end up being very good; he played extremely well down the stretch. Anyway, for the near-term future, I think those four (Allen, Burrow, Mahomes, and Herbert) will dominate, with Lamar Jackson being a wild card. I don't know what the future holds for Jackson, but he has obviously proven he can play at an elite level. This season was rough for him not just because of his own injuries, but because he was dealing with street FAs at the RB position all season. Under normal circumstances, I expect him to be good enough to compete regularly with Burrow. I also think Mayfield is better than what he showed this season because of the injury. That gives you basically six teams plus some combo of the Colts/Browns/Jags (because of Lawrence) fighting for the last spot in the playoffs. It's not clickbait if you have to pay for a subscription.

Always injured though. That's the sort of thing you can't account for.

I will say this, Zero -- if the Bills had won that game, a lot of critics would have targeted KC's terrible CB play in that game. The final TD to Davis was ridiculous -- no WR who is having that kind of game should be able to exploit a seam that's parted like the Red Sea in a must-pass and must-score situation. The CBs just about cost them that game. Mahomes, Hill, and Kelce baled them out.

From Draft Scout re: Hill: Data Scout Notes: 2015: AFCA-AP...4* Oklahoma State Transfer...Aug 2015-Pleaded Guilty to domestic assault and battery by strangulation...2014: 12-12-14 - Dismissed from Oklahoma State...12-11-14 - Off-Field/Charged with felony domestic abuse/DS #9 Jr WR/KR...ONewcomerOYC/2ndC-KR-AP/HMC-STPOY/1stM-AP...PNewcomerOYM/2014 4* JUCO/Top JUCO Speed ATH/PNewcomerOYM Hill had strangulation charges and was kicked out of Oklahoma State. There's a reason why teams shied away from him.

Goodwin is still in the league. In a reserve role with the Bears, he's still averaging 16 ypr (20 receptions this season). The same reason AB was a sixth round pick. Character questions. The concerns for both were valid.

Stevenson's 3-cone # is amazing. I look forward to watching him become a player. He looked absolutely blazing in college at WR.

I know I'll take heat from some, but I'll take my chances on an excellent interior lineman and an excellent WR being available in rounds 2-3. I am not confident a good CB will be there, and if there is a talented CB available who they believe in for their scheme, then that's the way I'd go.

Yes. The Bills are in good shape roster-wise. They need a corner upgrade, but the defensive roster is very good overall.

A general comment: yes, there is going to be some turnover on D, but the Bills defense was very, very good this season. And yes, they beat up on some bad teams, but all good teams beat up on bad teams. And their schedule wasn't inordinately easy either - of their 17 games, they played 9 teams with winning records. I mean, every good defense had some defensive clunkers this season. The Colts were torched by JACKSONVILLE in a must-win game. The Steelers were torched by Mahomes twice in a couple of weeks. The Broncos - which have an excellent D - were torched by Vegas, Pitt, and Philly. The Rams were torched multiple times (GB, AZ, SF). TB was torched by numerous teams too. The second ranked defense, the Pats, actually played a playoff game in which their opponent scored a TD on every drive! I could go on. Sometimes I think that people here don't actually watch other teams. Anyway, the Bills are in a good position on D and I'd be happy if Frazier remains.

Good, informative piece. You can convert it to bonus and spread it out. It's not hard.

The Chiefs have struggled in Super Bowls played on the opponent's home turf ... I think they may actually blow them out.

If Rodgers isn't in GB, that division is open for the taking. It's bad, although I'd say the Vikings would be a moderate favorite. Let's see what happens with Rodgers first.

It already has worked for the Rams. They're in the championship game and playing at home.

Mack's cap number ($17.8 million next year, which doesn't include the bonus: https://overthecap.com/player/khalil-mack/2944/) is a problem unless the Bills do a serious restructure of the contract. I suppose much of it could be converted to bonus given that the Bills aren't on the hook for the Bears' bonus. But why would the Bears trade him? He's an elite player and they want to win next season.

Hughes is still a better player than Shaq, as is Addison. Whether they'll be better *next* year -- a year older -- is the question. Also, I think the Bills like to roll with 9 d-linemen. I'm pretty down on Epenesa. He not only doesn't make plays, he doesn't play within the framework the Bills use -- DEs getting pressure without overpursuing toward the QB. By running too far upfield, he was responsible for that one long 3rd-and-long run by Mac Jones on the Pats opening drive in the playoff game.

The SB was a combination of both starting tackles being out and Mahomes playing with turf toe. I remember at the end of the AFC championship game last year when Fisher, their LT, went down in garbage time with an achilles. I thought, uh oh. It truly had a domino effect on that line in the SB. The combo they ran out there was total trash.

The problem with Mahomes is that he's not only a generationally great thrower, he's a ridiculously good scrambler who regularly makes defensive lines look bad. Even our two sacks of him were negligible; he ran out out bounds on both just behind the LOS. Basically, he presents the same problems that Josh Allen presents. They are both generational talents who are better than the guys they face on defense.

Btw, here's that passage from Albert Breer's SI MMQB column the other day: '3) This one’s more of a trend thing. “You look at Jameson leaving Ohio State, and he was the fourth receiver there, and then [Chris] Olave and [Garrett] Wilson opt out of the Rose Bowl, Jaxon Smith-Njigba breaks every record and Marvin Harrison Jr. steps right in. And no one can cover them,” said an AFC exec. “Those two things show the stark difference between receiver and corner right now. You look in the third and fourth rounds last year, and see Amon-Ra St. Brown, and Josh Palmer, and Nico Collins, and all these receivers that can play. And good luck finding a corner at that point of the draft.” The overarching point should be driven home again this year. There’s no Ja’Marr Chase in 2022. But there is depth, as there has been the last few years, at receiver. And it will, again, be a challenge to find good corners in April. 4) Along those lines, and this is something I brought up last spring: I don’t think it’s a coincidence that so many corners coming into the league are NFL legacies. The top two corners drafted last year (Jaycee Horn and Patrick Surtain II), and four of the top 13 taken (adding Asante Samuel Jr. and Elijah Molden) have NFL dads. This year, the presumptive top corner, LSU’s Derek Stingley Jr., had an NFL grandfather. What’s the hook here? Well, with the proliferation of seven-on-seven and explosion of spread offenses at the high school level, the best athletes all want to play receiver. A dad who played in the league sees that, and realizes, because of it, there’s a better chance that a great 6' 1", 200-pound athlete can make it at corner than at receiver. Bottom line, there are a lot of wideouts who profile athletically like Horn and Surtain, but far fewer corners. It means, ultimately, a better chance to get drafted higher. And a better chance, because of the scarcity of corners in the league, to sustain NFL earning power.' https://www.si.com/nfl/2022/01/17/mmqb-wild-card-weekend-kyle-shanahan-49ers-cowboys-rivalry

Sounds like his players at OSU and Florida spent a ton of time in college classes.

The PAC-12 isn't as bad as you think it is. This is the sort of thinking that makes teams shy away from Justin Herbert because he was a PAC-12 guy instead of an SEC guy. There are tons of good HS players on the west coast and they tend to stay there for college. Obviously the SEC is the best conference (although with regard to aggregate numbers bear in mind that they have two more teams than the PAC-12), but a bunch of PAC-12 schools have 20+ players in the NFL: https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2021-09-06/nfl-players-college-2021-rosters. (Scroll down for individual schools.) When comparing the PAC-12 to the Big 10, ACC, and SEC, factor in that they have 12 schools vs. 14 for the latter three.

I'll push against this a little because being a head coach is about so much more than tactical problems in just one game - it's hiring a staff, having a vision, a particular culture, etc. The Bills got the better of KC's offense in a big game early in the season, and in the playoff game they did a decent job of containing a truly explosive offense (holding them to 26 points) for the first 59 minutes. There's a bigger picture to consider then just those final 4 minutes (including OT).