dave mcbride

Um ... he spent his first pick this year on a guy who turned out to be one of the two or three best skill position players in the league. Diggs ALWAYS has to be accounted for in any evaluation of Beane’s drafts.

Yeah, and the quicks are lacking too. That said, he does play a role, and he plays it well. He’s a complementary piece.

Ugh. The last team i want to play in week one is a fully healthy KC.

Good research. I’d argue that for a couple of seasons at least, Muhammed Wilkerson was a stud. I think he simply lost all passion for the game and checked out after getting paid, however. In 2015, though, he was one of the best DEs in the league and probably should have been first-team all pro.

So basically, an Andy Reid guy. It’s knda unbelievable how many Reid guys are head coaches now. Had John Harbaugh before he was hired?

You really should read the in depth analyses of LBs and d-linemen by @Majbobby that he posted in the last couple of days. They are very informed and may (or may not) change your mind. As for Hughes, he had 2 fumble recoveries, a pick, a defensive TD and a pretty fair number of pressures. He also had a 75.3 rating from PFF (quite high) this year, for what that’s worth: https://www.pff.com/nfl/players/jerry-hughes/5556. I never understand fans wanting to get rid of pretty good team leaders who almost never get hurt, especIally in what looks to be a pretty bad pass rush draft. More importantly, you need to address his playoff performances. They are actually more important games than rando games vs. the Jets in week 3.

Again, he is 22, he has a more durable frame than Milano, and he's a better athlete. He's also asked to do far, far more. Don't get me wrong; I like Milano, and I know Edmunds needs to improve. But I'm not paying $13-14 million per for Milano, and with that upside, you gotta believe Edmunds can be coached up to come closer to reaching his potential. Hughes' cap number is a little over $9 million, and that's a fair price for a good-not-great DE who is also a team leader who can still bring it in big games (as he's done repeatedly). People forget that in the 2017 must-win finale vs. Miami, he had the highest graded game of any DE that year, if I recall correctly. And he had a great game vs. Jax the next week. Basically, he shows up when it matters. More guys like him, please.

Yeah, judging Beane on draft picks without crediting him for Diggs is nuts.

If the AFC wins, they'll be up 28-27 in Super Bowls. I distinctly recall during the Bills SB run the commentary that they were the representatives of the JV conference. Never liked that, and it has stuck with me.

How about both suffer failure? That seems more appealing to me.

Jerry Hughes has six sacks in the last four playoff games and 3 in the last 2. I don't think he's the problem. As for Edmunds in coverage, he's kind of set up to fail vis-a-vis passer rating. He plays the short center zone, and if a QB has time, is accurate, and has a good TE to throw to who knows how to adjust his route, the receiver will be open because Edmunds will have guessed already and the receiver can adjust. A better pass rush, and those completions result in 2-3 picks per season. As @MAJBobby has written, Will LB is the easiest position to play and MLB is arguably the hardest. It's tough to compare Milano and Edmunds because of that. Moreover, I think people forget how young Edmunds is. He is literally 22 and has off-the-charts physical talent. Be patient with him. If he doesn't pan out in the next couple of years, sure, cut the cord.

I know that technically Beane wasn't with the Bills for the 2017 draft, but at the time word came out that they Panthers loved Zay Jones and Dion Dawkins, and the Bills traded up one slot ahead of Carolina to get Dawkins and a couple of slots ahead of Carolina to get Jones. I have to think that the conversations occurred between McDermott and Beane beforehand. https://www.panthers.com/video/scouts-buzzing-about-zay-jones-18679168 https://www.espn.com/blog/carolina-panthers/post/_/id/25378/demarcus-walker-zay-jones-could-be-solid-second-day-targets-for-panthers https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2017/4/30/15492096/buffalo-bills-carolina-panthers-2017-nfl-draft-picks-dion-dawkins-sean-mcdermott-zay-jones/comment/426627249 Also, this guy was clearly plugged in. Check out picks 2 and 3 for Carolina! https://www.sbnation.com/nfl-mock-draft/2017/4/25/15396000/2017-nfl-mock-draft-carolina-panthers-zay-jones

That's not accurate. KC blitzed Allen relentlessly throughout the game. They basically had 5 sacks (the intentional grounding counts as a sack for me), and they were all HUGE losses - 5 takedowns for 69 yards, which is basically a 14-yard loss every sack. The intentional grounding was a 16-yard loss.

You gotta factor in QB scrambles on passing plays into these stats. Brady doesn't scramble.

This is the second time this happened against the Chiefs, though. The Bills had 206 yards of total offense when they faced them earlier (to the Chiefs' 466) and punted a ton of times. Allen was inaccurate on 24 percent of his throws too. This is the team they have to beat if they want to advance, and that game wasn't nearly as close as the final score. The Chiefs basically dominated them twice, and in both games the Bills' offense was stymied.

This is now a common phrase: "It's not about the X's and O's; it's about the Jimmies and Joes" --meaning that coaching and schemes aren't decisive, but rather the talent level of the players on the field.

It really depends on what you emphasize - going all in on stars and ignoring injury risk, or emphasizing risk management and building a deeper roster of potential starters. You can pay stars and hope that they never get hurt because what's behind them ain't gonna work, or you can pay a bunch of decent mid-level starting NFL players to mitigate the risk of collapse if stars get injured. I'm not saying one way is better than the other, but I do believe that injuries are so common that they have to be factored into team building. The Bills chose the second option for this season at least, and it basically worked even if it wasn't enough to make them competitive with the best team in the league.

Yeah, a little, but it's not a point of emphasis.

My inexpert take: that was a pretty bad play design and no one was open. Easy for me to say, of course.

McDermott basically acknowledged as much in his press conference, citing with emphasis KC's team speed.

I hadn’t seen this posted yet, but if it has, apologies. The basic takeaway: Simms sounds like us, and his recommendation — that the Bills need more Jimmies and Joes — makes a ton of sense. Specifically, he says they need one more top-level pass catching threat, an elite d-lineman that teams have to worry about, and another good cover corner. That all makes sense to me (I’ve been thinking for a while that they need an upgrade at the other corner spot).

Can we end the fiction that Brown “dropped” the pass? It was a bad decision by Allen and he was completely covered:

This^^^^. This TB team is dirty, mercenary, and thoroughly unlikeable. I’m old enough to remember that Antonio Brown is actually a terrible human being. Also, that defense delivers so many cheap shots, and they have a blowhard, wannabe celebrity coach who likes to make himself the center of attention. All of that, combined with Brady (who had to gall to dump on the region that made him a star after he moved to Florida), has me pulling for a 45-10 blowout by the Chiefs.

He was actually good in 2019 ...