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Yep. Guys have to earn their place on the field. That's the NFL. The Bills have never been to scared to play rookies who deserve to play. Tre White started week 1, Zay Jones started week 1, Dion Dawkins and Matt Milano started by the middle of their rookie seasons. Tremaine Edmunds started week 1, Josh started week 2. Ed Oliver started week 2. Devin Singletary started week 1. Dawson Knox started by week 4 his rookie year. Gregory Rousseau started week 1, Spencer Brown started by week 4. Christian Benford (as a 6th round pick) started week 1. Dalton Kincaid and O'Cyrus Torrence started week 1. Guys who didn't start as rookies and then came on to become starters later it is Cook, Bernard, Shakir from that 2022 class and then Gabe Davis and AJ Epenesa. Of those only Epenesa was not the starter by the middle of year 2. He only really became a starter this past year in year 5. Maybe Bishop will come on in 2025 and end up on this list. It is still possible, it is my hope. But it is equally possible he joins Cody Ford, Boogie Basham, Kaiir Elam and Zack Moss as early picks that never earn a starting spot.

I didnt move any goal posts. I'm just trying to define your vague, open-ended goal posts. Saying our extensions affected us "very negatively" with no further explanation or examples leaves a lot open to interpretation. So I dont hurt your feelings more, let me re-phrase. Which extensions hurt our ability to win? No one could predict White's injury, and he was an All-Pro before that. Knox isnt a huge number now, and wasnt even a big number then. Diggs isnt necessarily part of this conversation since it mainly centers around extending guys off their rookie deal and he came to us already on his 2nd contract and made the All-NFL team as we were extending him again. His meltdown was mostly centered around Dorsey and McD holding the team back, and he wasnt wrong, so... 🤷‍♂️ Extending players who prove themselves on their rookie contract is foundational to well-run organizations. It not only keeps homegrown talent, usually at a discount. It also shows players all around the league that we are willing to take care of our players and do business right, which makes more FAs want to join the team. It is absolutely the best way to do it, when the player deserves it. But it's not the only way we operate, as Beane proved with Tremaine Edmunds. And we didnt even re-sign Epenesa until the tampering period had started. There will always be some misfires. No one is 100%. No one. But way more often then not, signing rookies whose play has been proven to early extensions is the right way to do it.

It's clear that he only cares about money. I don't see him posting tweets about how the Bills should be working hard in the off-season to win the Superbowl. In fact he scrubbed his accounts of all things Bills. We don't need guys like that who only care about money. 99.9999% of us will never make $15 mil total in our lives and we are doing fine and he wants that PER SEASON. It's honestly very selfish. People saying "get paid while you can, this has to last you the rest of your life" are out of touch with how much it costs to have a nice life. He already has more than enough to have a great life. I'd be more concerned with how I'm remembered and not the things I'm able to buy. You win the Superbowl and you are now in a position to be considered for the HOF, TV analyst jobs, autograph signings etc. It's short sighted to say give me the money now. Enjoy playing for the Titans or Browns and being completely irrelevant. Tremaine Edmunds only cared about the money too and how quickly we forgot about and moved on from him. RB is a much easier position to replace. Trade him now while he's still worth something imo.

I’ve seen Rousseau compared to Tremaine Edmunds, which I would disagree with because I think Groot makes some of the splash plays that Edmunds never did. But I can see the Bills in a similar position in the offseason. While Rousseau is a good players and does a lot of things that don’t show on the stat sheet like setting the edge - does the team want to pay him top 5 money? Because he’ll likely get that on the open market. Does his solid production warrant a contract of an elite player?

I think the broad brush approach doesnt work i.e . Dont pay kickers... dont pay RBs... ... we pay for production... or should... but that also entails resource allocation... so just because you let someone walk does not mean you dont get production...(See Tremaine Edmunds leaving...) so you have to do the math... Do you pay cook 15mm for 1100 yards, 16 TDs and 200 receiving yards... or Do you give Ty Johnson 4mm for 900 rushing yards, 10 tds and 400 receiving yards... (just made up numbers for sake of argument) effectively is 11mm worth 200 rushing yards and 6 TDs... ? Then factor the production of who you add... paying 11mm to (pick a person say a WR) and add in their expected production... finish the equation and determine if the money allocation makes sense... I am not claiming one way or the other... I am just saying these are how I am factoring in these asset allocation decisions.... With running backs... production seems to be easier to fill in than in other positions... thus their projected production differences will be relatively small in a lot of instances... so paying RBs seems to have more drag when it coms to asset allocation.... Where as you look at say LT, does paying 4mm for a left tackle and accepting 6 more sacks are year and increasing your risk of blowing up your QB work out, or do you drop the bag on the gatekeeper...

I hear what you are saying, but to me, it’s time to retool the D. Groot is a solid player, but unfortunately, not a real game changer. I’m happy to have him back, but if the projections are anywhere near right, you can’t afford to be over paying for him and Oliver and 2 other guys that you either have to invest big draft capital in or pay big money just to hide the fact the other 2 have no real impact. These are the types of contracts that kill a team. Oliver is a replacement level starter being paid like a top 10 DT. Groot will be on the same path. You can’t afford to make the same mistake. If you could dump Oliver.. ok I guess. Bernard is solid, but he has the same issue as Milano, he’s too small, too fragile and too slow. He gets washed out of plays way too easily and needs space to operate, he’s offers next to nothing on the blitz because a stiff breeze can knock him off course. I like the guy, but he’s not one to invest in. This is specifically where I think the team needs to retool in a big way. LB has been a gapping hole for a while… I hate to say it, since Edmunds left and it wasn’t great then. Milano is a walking med tent, everyone else is mediocre. The lack of impact from the LB position is a MAJOR reason this team gets its ass beat in the run and TEs have their way with them. Let everyone play out their contracts, but two new starters are needed here. Benford, though a definite product of the system is really good in the system. Pay the man.

Tell me you have a Terrell Owens and a Takeo Spikes jersey along with a Tremaine Edmunds jersey so I can wash my conscious clean. These are the only players I bought while currently players since Kelly and none were on team 12 months later. This is why I have been borrowing my brothers Allen jersey for almost 2 years, I don't own it so no jinx.

Edmunds was easy to pick out after a 3rd down stop too. He was always the 1st to raise the fist indicating 4th down, while usually having nothing to do with the play 😃

The last thing you say is true. WR will continue to be a massive hole on the Bills until/unless we have a receiving corps the like of Chase/Higgins/Boyd or St Brown/Williams/LaPorta or Jefferson/Addison/Hockenson or maybe Kupp/Nacua/Higbee. The next couple sentences up remind me of the sort of thing people wrote about Allen after the draft, his rookie season, and whenever he had a bad game his second year. Because everyone knows, the player you draft is the player the team will get, Forever and Ever, Worlds without End, Amen. I'll leave the "lot better option available and Beane fumbled it" bit for after next season. I think we need to bear in mind that Beane has been pinning the Bills receiving hopes (for years) on guys who can play, but are relatively short and can get neutralized by aggressive, physical defense. Then we get annihllated in the playoffs when the refs say "let 'em play" and fail to call DH or DPI, or (as with the Lions) call it, but only a fraction of the time that it's actually going on. You can't change the outcome by doing the same thing. Beane also has a profile of drafting relatively raw but immensely physically talented players (Allen, Edmunds, Rousseau, now Coleman) on the theory the staff and the players will "coach them up" if the player has the right mindset. Sometimes it works well (Allen, Rousseau), sometimes it works OK (Edmunds), sometimes it doesn't work (Elam, apparently). Coleman is to be determined.

I love how ppl just say our rookie class sucked last year when it was the opposite before these guys got hurt. And then once bishop finally got settled in after his injury, he looked much better at the end of the season. Coleman was in the running for being the best rookie wr in the NFL before the injury, Carter was getting more and more snaps and emerging before he got hurt. Solomon showed real pass rush flash, ray Davis looked really good, Grable won the swing tackle job as a rookie. And we even have a Daequan Hardy who could surprise and ascend in year two, Ulofishio etc.... Ppl are wanting to assign blame instead of Really looking around the league and saying wow. The jets are a joke, so is Miami and the pats. So much for the Bengals, how about the browns trading away Mayfield, look at how overrated Dallas is? Nobody wants to win a championship more than me for this city. I was upset after the afc championship and said it's never going to happen etc. we're all emotional about the team They are going to win a couple super bowls with Allen. We have the right ppl in place as frustrating as it's been. Almost all metrics point that Rousseau was one of the most dominant dlineman in the NFL last year. He's not Myles Garrett or a tier one de. It doesn't mean he's not one heck of a player. I have said before he reminds me of Sean Jones and Charles Mann. Neither of those two were Bruce or even DeMarcus Ware. They were still really really good. Rousseau is in that class which is outstanding at the end of rd 1 It was always a joke that buffalo wasn't going to extend one of the most explosive 3tech dts and des in the NFL in Oliver and Rousseau. Especially with Rousseau being 24. If Beane didn't extend Rousseau then I would have fired him on the spot. Ppl comparing him to Edmunds are as clueless as it gets

Exactly. Spencer Brown would be another rookie who played. To play under McDermott, especially on defense, the rookie has to play better than the alternative. And that isn't just "display more physical talent", that's know the playbook, know their assignment in the playbook, and be able to read and interpret their keys pre and post snap during the stress and sheer physical exertion of an actual game. What people don't seem to take into account when they say "McDermott won't play rookies" (or "Levy didn't play rookies" for that matter) is that since 2019, the Bills have had a top-10 defense (on points) every year but 2020 (when they were dealing with a shitton of of turnovers and the offense was so hot the D may have relaxed a bit) and 2024 (when they were 11th by 4 points with a meaningless Week 18 game). 4 of those 6 years, the D was top-5 on points. In the same period of time, the number of defenders recognized with pro-bowl or all-pro honors can be counted on one hand. Tre' White and Edmunds (2x). Poyer (2x). Milano. I think that's it. 2 years, it's been "no one". Wrap your mind around that - a #4 and a #10 offense with zero, zip, zilch, none, no defensive players recognized by people around the league as top-notch. That's because the primary thing for a defender in this defense, is to be assignment-sound and work together. What does that mean? We've had some posters here who've pulled back the curtain a bit - @HoofHearted, @Buffalo716, sometimes @Simon (who quietly played ball into middle age), I'm sure I'm missing some. It's not just the offensive formation and the plays the opposing offense tends to run. It's being attuned to dozens of little tells pre-snap. Spacing. Hand position. Head position. Foot position. And then after the snap, each defender's assignment changes depending on what routes are actually run and how they are run. And the defensive players communicate with each other post-snap using body language just as the receivers and QB communicate. I remember a play, against NE I think it was, when Hyde took a horrible angle and a play went for a big gain. One of the film guys broke down the play and pointed out that Dodson, filling in at LB, had mis-directed Hyde with body language that conveyed to Hyde "take the other gap, I've got this one", except from his body position and leverage, he didn't. So Hyde started for what should have been the open side and had to put on the brakes and chase the play. That's part of what's meant when McDermott says something like "I can't put someone out there the other players don't trust" - it's not just knowing the assignment pre snap then how it changes post snap depending on what the skill players do, it's communicating clearly and correctly with the other defenders through body language and positioning, while not giving away the defensive call with your own pre-snap "tells". See above. I think what McDermott means there is not some intangible film room/locker room rappore kind of trust but a tangible "is he assignment sound pre and post snap? Does he communicate during the play so the other defenders can react appropriately? Does he interpret the communication he's getting and react appropriately?" This is all taking place while these guys are putting out peak physical effort play after play, and it takes a while to become second nature. And for some players (*cough* Elam *cough*) maybe it never will. And I think what McDermott means when he says it starts to affect the way the other guys play is, they try to compensate. If he can't trust what the LB is communicating, the safety will hang back and wait to see which gap the runner takes, leading to a surer tackle, but a bigger gain. A 'freakazoid' safety could commit and recover and make the play. Our guys can't.

lol, that's so true. allen was their best pick by 10 thousand miles the traded the pick for mahomes for tre white, who got hurt and became terrible after they extended him (mc corch trading mahomes for CB, such a clappy move). they traded for diggs, who was great for a couple years and then got extended and fell off and dug a huge hole in our cap (these extensions aren't great for us, are they?). the pick they traded? JEFFERSON. nice! they traded up for kinkaid, he sucks. traded up for edmunds, he was a decent player but we let him walk and didn't miss him (low value position) drafted groot, he's been good drafted oliver over 2 or 3 much better DTs, he's been good but not consistent, great playoffs this season. traded the worthy pick to kc (another great trade!) for coleman and of course, elam. if we got anyone besides maybe lamar in that allen draft, beane and mcdermot are working in carolina between then and now and got again at some point. anyhow, to address the OP, allen's legacy will be the greatest most exciting player who rescued a trash organization from itself. he's the barry sanders of qbs.

I feel a lot better about Bernard chasing down Kelce at Arrowhead in late January than I felt about AJ Klein at home last year. So that helps. Bernard is fine. If Derrick Henry is hitting the 2nd level against Bernard, I don't love our chances. McD is going to have to change his philosophy for a game like that. But Bernard is a solid enough player. If he gets an Edmunds longterm deal, I'll definitely pass. But if he can be had on a cheaper deal I'm definitely interested. But in general I just kind of like the idea of drafting a LB in the mid rounds every year and having them develop, move on, rinse, repeat.

Eh, I disagree. No matter what kind of players we have on D, it's still coached by McD & still fails to show up in the playoffs. Would anyone say our safeties are better than prime Hyde & Poyer? Definitely not, yet they performed pretty much the same come playoff time. I'm not saying it's hopeless, but our defense has been historically bad in these last 5 losses. Whether McDermott goes heavy D in the 1st or 2nd, the end result ends up the same because he still coaches the same & goes after the same types of players. Did Ed, Groot, Basham & Elam have more impact than Hamlin, Bernard, Benford & Williams? Maybe slightly, but those 1st & 2nd round picks haven't really been much more impactful come playoff time than the picks we took later in the draft. In my opinion, might as well keep taking shots at giving Josh the best weapons possible. The offense is the only thing that really has a chance to change & improve year over year, and it's lead by our best player. In a perfect world, Josh would've been paired with a great offensive coach, then if the D isn't carrying its weight, we could replace the coordinator & start over. But we're stuck with McDermott's D no matter what. We've seen 6 years of McDermott's D suck in the playoffs, while Josh shows up. Spent a 1st round pick on Edmunds & he's just solid. Spent a 5th on Milano & he became a stud. You just never know, but I've yet to see McDermott find a huge impact player in the 1st round outside of Josh, but we've seen him do so in the later rounds.

When discussing cap, a serious conversation should be had about who we resign, which will impact what we do this year in Free Agency and the Draft. Cook and Shakir are re-signs for me. They're both difference makers and they both step up when the lights shine bright. Rousseau and Bernard are maybe's, who I'm sure they'll probably re-sign, but I don't know. I'm iffy on the ROI with those two. It seems like more Knox/Oliver type paying good/not great players big money. Benford is a no for me. He hasn't made it through one playoff run healthy and he's not a ball hawk. Great cover corner, which if there is one thing I'm actually confident in McDermott in, it's to be able to find these type of guys. That money needs to go to the DL, which will in return, help our Secondary. Bills cap is only ok, even after this reset year, because we had to chase pass rush and sign an aging Von, along with tying up money in players that don't make a difference when it matters. At some point, we have to treat more guys like Edmunds and less like Oliver.

With the holes we have at positions of need and what's left in Free Agency (not to mention of our cap) - that 1st Pick is going to see significant snaps, if not start. It's been that way with a Rookie dating back to the beginning with this regime, save for Epenesa (who was a late 2nd Round pick) and Elam (who got beat out by Benford). Last year it was Keon Coleman, the year before Dalton Kincaid, in 2022 it was supposed to be Kaiir Elam but ended up being Benford (finding a Benford in the 6th is the exception, not the rule), in 2021 it was Greg Rousseau, in 2019 it was Ed Oliver, in 2018 it was Josh Allen and Tremaine Edmunds, and in 2017 it was Tre White. A positive contribution is greater than no contribution at all. Especially when the roster is in the shape it's in after a pretty lacking Free Agency. There's a major difference between Drafting a player who gets hurt in Training Camp and the Pre-Season and misses his Rookie year like JJ McCarthy and Drafting a guy knowing he's got a long recovery and will miss his Rookie year. That argument you're making that any Rookie we Draft can get injured and miss the season furthers my point. If we're already taking on a guy who won't play with our top pick and one of our other top picks goes down in Training Camp - we're really nowhere this year. My overall point is this roster needs far more help to this point than I was expecting. Outside of upgrading Von Miller to Joey Bosa (who is a risky proposition) and Mack Hollins to Joshua Palmer (who is a 670 yard average WR) - we have nothing to speak for in terms of improvement to the team. And at spots like CB and DT we've taken a step back. Even at WR, we only have 4 and we're maybe slightly better than we were when we had to make a deal for Cooper (who's spot we haven't replaced) halfway through the season bc we didn't have enough. With what's left in Free Agency and where we're at financially - we're looking to the Draft to fill a lot of those holes. And our best shot at doing that is with the highest picks we have. To use our top asset for a guy who we know will be on ice until next season isn't really feasible IMO.

Really your gonna bring up Tre and Poyer. Tre after 2 injuries and Poyer after father time took his speed. People have been saying Poyer has been regressing for years. I’m not sure about Edmunds regressing in Chicago, can’t really comment on that. Levi was always the weakest link and maybe Phillips is just better when he gets that high amount of rotation the Bills Dlineman get in Buffalo. Doesn’t mean everything is wasted. You are basically saying we have no options but McDs system until Joshs career is over. That’s total bull####. You’re not starting over.

Reid Ferguson ended up on his back 8 yards deep in the backfield on that punt block. Outside of Tremaine Edmunds I've never seen a guy that big get moved that easily.

And we can in some games say - Thank you refs ! If you look at the D we lose a player in Edmunds that is suppose to be this STUD but has no real relevant contributions, his replacement is MUCH better and is noticed in the first season, then the 2 best safety's in the league get older and need to be replaced, they get Von he shows real good then gets hurt and isn't the same which happens to a lot of younger players too when hurt in the same way , Millano one of our best players gets hurt it happens and takes time for him to come back , then we lose 2 seasons of one of the best CB's in the league in Tre da and have to put a band aid on that position for 2 seasons . So just maybe it's circumstance ??? But no one here seems to take ANY of that into consideration, Oh it's the Coach, it's the scheme, it's this, it's that, if all of the stars align and none of this type of thing happens where do you think the Bills are then ? Every body says and it's true, it happens to every team and you need really good depth players which is true, but replacing all pro's, and pro bowl players then those being 3 & 4 at a time being taken away due to injury is in some respects hard for any coach or team to over come yet McD always seems to over come them and gets the Bills in the play offs . But he sucks Fire him ...

Beane and McDermott (and probably Aaron Kramer) deserve a ton of credit for sticking with Spencer Brown and realizing his potential . At the end of the 2022 season, many of us wanted a new RT to compete with Brown after a lackluster sophomore season. But Beane stood up for him at the end of the year press conference and he was 100% right. Unfortunately, he did the same for Gabe Davis and Tremaine “he does things that don’t show up on the stat sheet” Edmunds. His loyalty wasn’t really rewarded in those players.

Because he was pretty awesome in 20-21 and was still really good in 22 and 23. He was as close to a true number one as you can be. He was never an Andre Johnson or Eric Moulds level talent tho imo. Those are true archetype one wrs that can do everything diggs did but we're much more physical and could truly torch you deep. Two players that were complete no shows in the famous 13 seconds game Edmunds and Diggs.... That means something imo Don't get me started on the Edmunds truthers lol I like cover 1, their content is pretty good but it was really embarrassing with some of their takes on Edmunds. Like cringe levels of cope 😂

I am really appreciating the amount of post on here that are accurate. There are some on here that seem to think that we have all the time in the world to keep missing on our Draft Picks (early picks) and wait for them to maybe mature into quality, impactful players. I heard for years and years that we needed to wait for Edmunds to mature, same with AJ Epenesa and Groot. Both of them are going on year 5 and 6 and still are not what producing for where they were drafted IMO. Josh continues to age and with his style of play, it is extremely foolish to believe that he will be playing into his mid to late 30s... He may, but mobile Josh he aint gonna be and Josh aint no pocket QB, so without his mobility, unless he seriously works on his pocket game, i dont think he will be around for 7-8 more years and be elite like some tend to believe. Yes, before Baltimore or KC somehow finds a way to get him and pay him a crazy large contract. Every year a quality player like Garrett ends up on a team that shouldn't be able to afford him, but somehow manage to pull it off, and we have the same lousy excuse that we don't have the cap space to grab a guy like him.

No, it doesn’t warrant an elite player contract. The comparison to Edmunds is because we see the otherworldly potential but, at some point, it has to click. He has to show out this postseason. Same for Oliver or I’d float his name for a trade this offseason. Enough is enough and the DL cannot be the reason we don’t get to a Super Bowl. If it is, blow it up.

That's not how comp picks work. We lost out on a 3rd last year for two reasons. They changed the formula qualifications to include money in deals that they hadn't before. Before that, teams (like us) would carefully construct contracts with void years and incentives that wouldn't effect the cap number and skirt the formula. So when they changed that on a dime, contracts like we did with Floyd were taken into account more than we expected. The other was that Tremaine Edmunds missed time due to injury. Under the new rules, a 4th is what we were owed. It sucks they changed the qualifications, but they did and we got what we should have under them. We were far from the only team that fell victim to the new rules. As for this year, last years qualifications have been accounted for by prognasticators (and i'd doubt they change them again). It was going to be a 4 for Davis, but will fall to a 5 because of him going on IR at about the halfway mark of the year. Floyd is a 5th. It will be 2 5th's. There's no qualification in the formula for calculating an individual players compensatory worth based on fans perceived slights in previous years. Nope. Any FA that signs this offseason won't be compensated until next season. This year is for last year's Free Agent losses of Gabe Davis and Leonard Floyd. And as I said earlier, veterans with 10 or more seasons accrued qualify for a maximum compensation of a 5th Round Pick. This was Amari Cooper's 10th season, so we can't get any more than a 5 next offseason if we lose him this offseason.

I’ve been wrong a bunch (Losman, Manuel, Edmunds) but from draft day I was right about Cook. He was underused at UGA but his flashes were Kamara-like. Shady had more wiggle but Cook gets through the hole as fast as anyone then he’s vapor. IF the Bills get the Lombardi, Cook will be a big reason … so you’ll have to sign him. That’s a big IF. IF so, we would’ve proven we don’t need to expend big bucks at WR. Keep Cook, then get a DE and DT in the draft. Merry Christmas to all 🎄🦬