BillsVet

I will answer your questions when you begin answering mine. Until then, there's nothing left to discuss.

Context is king with this situation. We do not have enough information to confirm/deny many of the news. But I can say, an Emergency Response Team does not have the responsibility of de-escalating. They're a specialized unit to handle high risk situations, hence their gear. Anyone with military/police experience understands communications are critical to responsiveness and mission completion. Knowing what your fellow soldier/officer/other friendly units are doing is key in high-risk situations. I know this is hard to believe, but protestors/rioters are a very coordinated movement and the first thing any organized group wants to do is inhibit communications. There is no reason to have a cell phone out in front of an ERT team other than to take a video or attempt to impede the police's communications. And the former is unlikely given that he's not even trying to take a picture. Either way, he was not a peace activist as has been suggested. Peace activists do not approach ERT teams clad in that gear with their arms out. Not safe, unless of course you're looking for a reaction. It is also convenient that, due to HIPAA regulations, we will never know what hospital staff encountered when he arrived. I have seen an image of him sitting up and talking on his phone before placement into the ambulance. With a major head wound, I would expect EMT personnel to rush him to the nearest hospital. I'll ask a question unlikely to receive an answer: Why? Something is amiss with this situation and we may never know the full story.

It used to be the time period between the draft and training camp was pretty quiet. People talked football, but in a limited way unless Marshawn got in trouble. I have no idea why someone opens a thread about some random dude wearing an old jersey. The SNL sketch where Shatner addressed the Star Trek convention applies here.

And what happened in that game from November 2011? NYJ pressed BUF's WRs at the LOS to disrupt their timing. It forced Buffalo to have Fitz throw downfield and exposed his lack of arm strength as RR planned for. After that game it was straight downhill and a blueprint established on how to defeat Buffalo's offense. The Bills managed to score only 140 points in the next 9 games on their way to a 1-8 finish after that 5-2 start. But not before Buddy "The Genius" Nix bowed to pressure and signed Fitz to a significant contract extension that he complained to former Bucs GM Mark Dominik about in a leaked conversation. Buddy Nix was not suited to the GM job and the game had passed him by. And I think Chan wanted to go with unheralded types as if to prove he could scheme lesser talent. 16-32 after 3 seasons says they were both incapable. Of course, this was after they used the 9th overall pick on a RB and used significant resources to transition in 1 offseason from a Cover 2 defense to a 3-4. That didn't work, but it gobbled up resources which should have been used to add talent on offense.

It's not that simple. Good teams frequently replace their higher (or soon to be) priced veterans with lower cost rookies and the draft is the predominant method for that. Especially at safety, LB, G, RB, and perhaps DT. The draft is also where you find talent at the elite positions: QB, WR, LT, DE, and CB because it's rare to pick up someone in UFA on a team friendly contract at those positions. There is risk inherent to any process and mitigating that on draft day is impossible. But compared to the reward, draft picks used by competent front offices tend to work out at a higher rate.

Main complaint with Daboll is how he calls a game. It lacks vision to me as evidenced in the WC game. That said, the offense is complex, which just seems like another coach who wants to run his system. It's not like what Baltimore did with Lamar Jackson identifying a scheme that he could run at this point in his career. All of this is why I suspect Buffalo loaded up with UFA offensive types last year. Of course the QB has to grasp the concepts, but the majority of their OL and top 2 WRs were guys with plenty of NFL experience and a RB who is the NFL's version of Methuselah (and I say this as a positive). Doesn't bode well if they're trying to involve younger players into the scheme.

This thread was about top 100 players according to one NFL writer. Buffalo features 2 players, one drafted and one acquired via trade. Both happen to play on the outside at the premier positions. There are a few issues intersecting here. First is that you need elite talent at those premier positions: QB, LT, WR, DE, and CB. There's hope for Allen, Diggs, Tre, but then who at those positions on this roster is in-place as Pro Bowl/All-Pro worthy? Second, they have a lot of nice players, but no one that stands out aside from the 2 mentioned on Prisco's list. We can debate individual players ad nauseam. Point is that the 2019 Bills featured 1 starting Pro Bowl player and 1 alternate and they need a lot more than that to be successful in the post-season. And who's all of a sudden talking about quality of play on national TV? That isn't part of this specific conversation.

You do know the Rams were in the Super Bowl the second year McVay was HC, right? Buffalo hasn't won a playoff game under McBeane. LAR may have some issues, but it's clear their HC understands offense in a way that McDermott/Daboll haven't demonstrated.

Average or slightly above average overall talent typically delivers similar results. One can say there are no weaknesses, but what are the strengths? I would say the secondary is strong and the front 7 is stout. On offense, the receivers from 1-3 are very good, but the OL is relatively average or slightly above. I'm not concerned right now about the cap situation in 2021 and beyond. They will be handing out large contracts if their home-grown players can shed their label of having "potential" to those regarded as legit outstanding talent. Who really cares what their cap hit is anyway? It's not like the league is rewarding teams for saving.

Buffalo has accomplished this by: 1. Not pursuing big name UFA's (nothing wrong with that) and 2. Not finalizing a contract with a player they drafted. The first likely will not happen under this regime and the second is almost guaranteed to occur multiple times over the next 2-3 seasons. There's still a lot of book to write about McBeane and whether they'll re-sign players to contract exceeding 12M per. Bottom line is that cap dollars saved is not a metric that should be lauded too much. No one gets extra draft picks or wins by saving there.

The roster has been built to fit the coach’s strategy, vision, and to ensure a solid culture. I like that they’ve improved depth and probably better able to withstand injuries. My concern is their lack of top end talent will show up against better opponents. Depth is nice, but over the season those players will not consistently provide a matchup disadvantage. A good scheme and better in-game decisions may help offset this, but it’s a long season and their schedule likely will be more challenging in 2020. It comes down to Allen’s improvement to be a force multiplier on offense. Hopefully he is up to the task and can get the ball to Diggs and others to improve that side of the ball. I hope McD isn’t going to just expect the defense and a conservative offense will get them deep into the playoffs.

TBD discussion that casts a player negatively for on or off field matters quickly becomes doctoral thesis level quibbling. Never fails to happen.

Gotta believe Whaley's grammar was better. And that's considering his choice of words sometimes was underwhelming.

I see a lot of Kelvin Benjamin, Invizayble Jones, Isaiah McKenzie, Robert Foster, Deonte Thompson, and a cast of several fringe NFL types in these lowlights. Good to see after 2+ years prioritizing more defense, they finally figured out those receivers were not starting quality. The 2017 and 2018 WR groups were among the worst in the NFL. The price to McD getting to build his defense first in order to steal some games by keeping them close was found on the offensive side of the ball. The OL and WR groups especially.

The roster is better, the QB is more experienced and they have continuity at the coordinator and HC. Everything is aligned for Buffalo to beat their biggest adversary. Still, it should be noted that McD is 0-6 against BB and been out-scored by 85 points in those games. He's gotta be better because most games are decided by one score or less.

I'd much rather have a dangerous offense than a dangerous defense. The first wins championships. The second wins over fans debating about pointless morning show rankings.

Dad's are always soft on the daughters. The boys OTOH...

Three drills do not nearly form the basis for comparison for a given player's best position. I'll give you one that isn't the whole story - Ed Oliver plays at (we're told) 285-290 on a 6''0-1 frame. Epenesa is 6'4-5 and has been listed around 275-280. Body composition notwithstanding, just comparing height/weight/speed is not telling anyone much of anything. Epenesa looks most like a 40 front LDE and was, in all likelihood, drafted to play there. After all, they signed 2 DT's this off-season, drafted Oliver last year, already had Phillips and Star from the year before. Let's not overthink this. Especially because he's not going to be a 1 technique if he played inside and could (underscore could) bump inside to rush as a 3 tech. Does that push out Oliver on passing downs? I'd hope not considering Oliver's a top 10 pick. Which situations does Epenesa move in?

McD's job title needs to change from Head Coach to Chief Executive Officer.

Those who are objective typically are chided or, at worst, ripped for not applauding most if not every move. I get that to be a fan you have to love the team. At the same time it's not wrong to be analytical and compare your team to the successful ones. I want Buffalo to win the SB like any fan. Loved the trade for Diggs, not keen on trying to be a top defense if it takes away from offensive investment given league trends and what the best teams are doing. We'll see, but all fans' perspectives should be discussed openly and without judgement. Here, that's a bridge too far when it comes to the biggest decisions.

If you add in cap hits of Addison's ~10M 2020 contract and assume Epenesa with 1.25M for this year, we're talking about 61M going toward the DL of their ~215M in cap dollars spent (assuming 6M for rookie contracts this season). That's approximately about 28% of their cap going to DL and the highest in the NFL so far as I can see. And yes, we should see significant production from that group. My guess is also that Murphy with a 9.775M cap hit many not fit into this group given. Just trying to put some context around this. The cap is flexible and many contracts are short term, but they'll have decisions to make on players soon. Especially with White, perhaps Dawkins, and hopefully Allen up for extensions.

Looking at McD's tenure as HC, he's 3-17 against playoff teams or in the playoffs combined. If we throw out '17 and '18, they were 1-5 last season against those caliber of teams. They kept games close with defense, but struggled on offense, never scoring more than 19 points against any of those teams (NE 2x, TEN, PHI, BAL, at HOU).

I did not notice that Addison is being counted as a LB in that analysis. That adds to my argument they've loaded up there and they've not yet signed Epenesa to his rookie contract. We're going to find out if this plan of featuring a deep DL pays off in wins. Ultimately, I think McD wants to be strong against the run to force teams to pass into that secondary with White, Hyde, Poyer, and whomever is CB2.

I think the concern with Buffalo is they lack elite talent outside of Tre White and perhaps Stefon Diggs. You'd hope that younger players like Oliver, Edmunds, Allen, Singletary, and others might distinguish themselves because the NFL is about creating matchup disadvantages. Heading into the season, Buffalo is strong across several position groups, but their lack of top end talent is something to be aware of. That said, Buffalo isn't going to sneak up on teams the way they might have in 2019 coming off a poor 2018 season. Hopefully, we'll see higher picks ascend into being top performers. They almost need to given the challenge of playing the AFCW and NFCW this season.

It's not an immediate concern, but many of these short term UFA DL signings will need to be replaced with draftees, yet after 4 drafts they've got 3 younger players on the DL: Phillips, Oliver and Epenesa. If they're going to perennially need a 7-8 man DL rotation, they'll require more draft picks because that seems like the HC's strategy. Bottom line is the 2020 Bills feature a lot of UFA's starting or contributing big minutes and the DL isn't the only example. Their OL and WR groups are largely made up of UFAs or those they've traded for. Still, something to watch out for.