BillsVet

I don't know why people are complaining. They drafted Josh Allen.

Goes to a point you made after the draft about the DL. With Beane, it's a become this annual exercise to revamp the DL or add multiple contributors to it. Yeah, there's having a rotation, but they've signed 4 UFAs and drafted 3 more while having a 3-4 from last season who'll be in the rotation for 2025.

Welcome to Buffalo Grant. Here's your injury settlement and have a nice flight home.

If he was capable of "having big games" Jacksonville would have not eaten that 20M in cap across 2026 and 2027. Just say no to drugs...like previous players who are a shell of what they used to be...which wasn't much.

Gabe Davis is a scrap heap WR. A familiar one, yes...but still unsigned for a reason. That they're hosting him for a visit tells the story that not all is well at WR.

One of these years Beane will stop butchering the WR position. Maybe next year. Maybe 2027. Hard to tell at this point.

Most people really don't see or know how a GM contributes because it's done largely behind closed doors. Those same people will see McD's in-game decisions and player performance and focus on those elements...but what is it that got them there during the regular season? It's Beane and McD's decisions to their philosophy, their schemes, and the players who they select. That's all the off-season/behind closed-doors stuff. 2025 is going to be an interesting season for this reason. Either their plan works or it doesn't. No more room to double down because hey did that this past off-season.

Looks awesome. I did Piegan Pass and a few others 5 years ago, but still want to do the Highline Trail.

Ralph didn't get 430M in revenue sharing each year though. Also wondering if McAfee asked Beane about his wizard skills.

On Super Bowl Sunday, ESPN would air all the SB highlight shows from previous years beginning in the early morning. I think they were 30 minutes long which meant in the early 90s you could get through them all by noon. I'd watch them, all of which were narrated by Facenda though 1983. Facenda's voice is a childhood memory for me...waking up at 1am to watch those highlight shows on ESPN. Cannot believe he's not in Canton.

2025 is a referendum on this GM/HC combination playing this style. Because no real NFL team with a top QB can go 6 seasons missing the SB since said QB showed he’s the real deal. McD and Beane are on track for the Hall of Very Good if they continue on that path. But Terry likely doesn’t fire either.

Of their 22 2017-2022 draft picks who reached or neared the end of their rookie deals, they've re-signed 16. And of those, 12 got 9M+ AAV extensions. That's all well and good, but it's getting expensive re-signing all these players. Truth is, they've got to start seeing starting caliber play out of guys on rookie or value UFA contracts. They can't sign everyone to market-based deals because it's how you're cap-challenged each March. Which is what Buffalo is now. Truth is, Buffalo has not been good finding value-type UFAs which would alleviate their cap pressure. Sure, it's great to give a MLB 9M AAV, but where a team really gets it done is letting him hit UFA and either having his replacement on a rookie deal or a UFA making 4M for 1-2 seasons without much drop in play. Not easy, but that's how teams can keep have a big QB contract with WR and DE talent signed long-term. Buffalo has become a very safe team in their personnel decision-making and re-signing your own to market-based contracts sometimes is that. Not saying it'll happen, but re-signing James Cook fits there. He's a known entity and there's mild risk drafting a RB in RD3/4 who'd need to come in and learn. Or, draft a WR when you acknowledge that scouting them is hard...so just sign another Elijah Moore or Josh Palmer because there's tape on those guys.

If the 13 seconds game before the final regulation KC drive didn't tell you Josh Allen is great and and especially with excellent offensive talent then I don't know what will. And I'd say he's a more well-rounded QB now than back then. You have to have a game-plan changeup when the fastball ain't working. Going into games as Buffalo does expecting to be strong defensively paired with a quasi-dink and dunk offense doesn't always work. Have to be able to out-score the opponent when the defense is struggling.

The early 2010s Seahawks built an excellent defense, but injuries, contract extensions, age, etc. didn't allow it to continue at that level very long. And they had true elite defensive talent unlike the McBeane defensive roster. Still managed to win a SB and appear in another. The model of maintaining a defense with upwards of 15-17 starters/key depth is not and never will be an efficient use of resources when you have a franchise QB. Still, 2025 will provide the verdict on McBeane's strategy of not substantially investing in WRs and therefore Josh while going defense-heavy again. If this strategy doesn't get them to the SB, there's no more doubling to tripling down on that approach. It has to be pivoted from and they embrace a Josh-first team featuring real a real WR1 that emphasizes throwing it. Because if it doesn't and they're 6 straight seasons without a SB appearance there's no room to run.

It’s not a hard decision if he’s available in trade. McLaurin would be a great addition. Most important thing though is it hinders their cap space to add more defense next off-season and we know Beane doesn’t apologize for using much of that at DL. Besides, their WR group of multiple 3’s will be made better by Josh Allen. Don’t need a McLaurin or Metcalf…they have quantity and that’s how teams do it in this league.

Training camp has always been, as far back as I can remember, a time for people to: 1. Talk about how players who ultimately didn't make the roster. 2. Talk about how the pre-season game results don't matter because the schemes are vanilla 3. Talk about how unlucky this team is with injuries. (this is today's focus) Nothing's changed...there's just more people here doing it for a team that's much better than circa 2008-09.

Both elements seem to dovetail though. They don't take WRs because they're not confident in their evaluations now and that works because their strategy, at least with college players, doesn't require taking them high, Have to consider the amateur scouts know this and adjust their time/activities accordingly.

One of the last times this topic came up (and it's an off-season tradition now) @GunnerBill noted that Beane losing Schoen was a big blow. This may be true, but it's hard to believe that in the 4 off-seasons without Schoen, Beane hasn't changed his approach to include emphasizing drafting WRs in RD1/2/3. Points to trusting a strategy and not trusting evaluations/evaluators he's brought on at one of the high-positional value positions.

And this off-season we learned the GM sees WR as harder to scout which is why I contend he avoids the position in the top-100. He'd rather spend valuable cap dollars on low to moderate UFA WRs who he has more tape on than use a high pick on a WR that could bust. What's irritating is that this has been their MO for a few years now. 2022 going with little beyond Diggs. 2023 signing Harty and Sherfield. 2024 featuring that terrible group which got Josh beat up in Weeks 4 and 5. 2025 is perhaps a tick better, but Elijah Moore and Josh Palmer don't exactly move the needle. And in all that time only spending a RD2 pick he traded down twice for at the position. But it makes sense seeing the overall talent on the roster. After taking Josh, Beane's MO is to take the known entity, particularly on defense or other low-positional value positions than risk a pick at WR.

No need to explain that maintaining their elite team offensive performance is not sustainable, but some still can't grasp it. Sad. It'd be like my group at work all in lock-step delivering on-time every time. Never does happen even with elite talent because stuff...just happens. In this case, it's 8 total offensive turnovers out of 1,088 snaps in the regular season and 0 out of 210 in the playoffs. That performance is unheard of in the modern NFL. Anyone who expects this to continue is clearly a slow thinker and it's not debatable. They will regress for several reasons, namely...defenses will adapt after reviewing Buffalo's offense this past off-season, their receiving options are pedestrian types who aren't winning as easily 1 on 1, and the ball will literally bounce against them, and their offensive health (particularly at OL) has been remarkably fortunate. None of us want to see one guy go down long-term, but it will happen.

In the AFC CG.* *cue the "but we scored 29 points that game crowd"

Essentially my point and what I've observed elsewhere: those outside of the union's executive leadership are increasingly marginalized and treated like chaff. NBA franchises aren't going to be crippled by a contract like that, not when the team cap is 155M next year. You're advocating that, because risk comes when an athlete sustains an injury and/or production declines it's proof-positive that guaranteed contracts are bad. They're not. Risk cannot be totally eliminated and teams make decisions that go awry. It's part of life. Taking this back to the Bills, whenever Beane has wanted to cut someone's pay, the player wound up being cut not long after. NFL players have less leverage than their NBA, MLB, and NHL counterparts in many instances and this is exemplified with other franchises. What I'm seeing here is people claim that guaranteed contracts would prompt teams to be hesitant to spend. I disagree. Teams still are under pressure to win as evidenced by the yearly HC carousel and have their own guaranteed income from revenue sharing. Teams are required to spend a certain percentage and would acquiesce...which would demand being more careful particularly in UFA. It's funny to discuss this because I was once vehemently pro-management and viewed players as typically the problem.

People missing the point. There's always going to be more salary concentrated in the hands of the fewer players who have skill sets that are better particularly at positions of high positional value. No one is demanding that interior OL or backup safeties get paid like top QB or WR. Still, if you're a union member, be it NFLPA, AFL-CIO, CSEA, whatever and the executive is working with management or offering token resistance on issues...the likely outcomes are going to be bad. Conflict in labor relations can be a good thing if both sides are strong and have differing viewpoints. What isn't good is to avoid all conflict and collude so that negotiations are easy...that typically ends with rank and file getting a bad contract.

Those data points obscure what is the economic reality in the NFL: a higher share of the cap is going to fewer players. It's not unexpected because the supply of excellent QBs, WRs, and pass rushers will always be in demand. And the model the NFL employs will pay them accordingly. Conversely, you can see it with RB's...they're largely not being paid (cue the person who points to Saquon Barkley) because their skill-set isn't as valuable. Besides, highlighting the decreased 2021 cap fails to consider the aberration that the pandemic was.

It's a big picture issue, so I get that some will gloss over it for this reason. Whole point is...the league and union are working together and someone stands to lose. Especially when you consider there are player safety issues with going to 17 and likely to 18 games. Or, with the increased cap, which all too often is weighted for a more limited group of players. Something has to give at some point.