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But even when we had prime Poyer, Hyde & White (along with Milano & Edmunds), our D still looked the same in the playoffs. The best game they ever had against a good QB was against the Ravens in the Divisional round. The 4 losses to the Chiefs & 1 to the Bengals looked the same regardless of who we had out there, all because McDermott.

Edmunds the 2nd best first round pick? Nah, I’d put him comfortably behind Oliver and Rousseau. After next year, probably Kincaid as well if he takes a step forward.

Math, indeed. Not really sure where you came up with 33%. Of the five first-round, non-Allen picks Beane has made, three of them are still on the team. Two (Groot and Oliver) have signed contract extensions. Two (Edmunds, and Elam) are gone. Kincaid wouldn't really work into that study. He's not a player who "didn't re-up with their drafting team," as he's only been in the league two years. And of course, we didn't have a first round pick last year. Be that as it may, your original point that Beane's first round draft record supports the notion that Beane would be fired, were it not for Allen, is nonsense. Of Beane's five first round picks not named Allen, only one of them (Elam) could really be considered a bust. Edmunds left the Bills, and signed a $72M contract with the Bears. Although, I suppose if Beane hadn't drafted Allen, and instead gone for "Right Josh" Rosen, he might have been shown the door not long after. But, he didn't, did he?

That is a good point. Beane did draft Allen tho and his idea of Edmunds was in the right place. It just didn't work out. Oliver and Rousseau need an ace next to them

Lets see, the trade got us White (not on the roster) and T Edmunds (not on the roster). HOF QB for two guys not on the roster, sorry but thats a horrible trade.

And no one thought Edmunds would approach the number he got from the Bears either. But you got an ascending, young athletic player with starting experience and team leadership out in the open market...really no telling how much value he would have IMO. Especially with more and more teams going lighter/faster on defense these days. But I do think it would go for more than $25M in guaranteed cash.

On the surface, sure it looks very similar. But the 2022 team had Tremaine Edmunds on it.

Any Trubisky truthers at the time? You'd have to be equally critical of every other team in the league who either passed on him or didn't trade up for him unless they already had an elite QB on the roster. I was still on the old board at that point but I'll take your word for being on the Mahomes train. What really spins my head is if the Bills did select Mahomes and then fired Whaley it would be even weirder than when he was actually fired. If Beane was GM when McDermott was hired, would he have showed the same aggressiveness in getting Mahomes that he did in getting Allen? I think just moving up to draft Allen by default makes it his best year as GM here. There wasn't any other off-season that stood out to me as just a stellar job across the board. Getting a 2nd for Watkins (not popular with the fan base), a 3rd for Tyrod, and trading Glenn to move from #21 to #12 in the draft were all good moves considering McDermott just had to get the luckiest 9-7 record of all time in 2017 so we needed as much ammo as possible to trade up for a QB. No disagreement with the awfulness of the free agency draft class though. I struggle with the Edmunds pick because I loved the prospect but I hate moving up in the first round for anybody but a QB.

Benford and Cook are goners. Unless something gets done VERY soon which would shock me. Every year I find it surprising how much $ the Bills are able to spend. History's shown we either sign our guys early or don't sign them at all. Examples Allen. Milano, Knox, Shakir, Oliver, Bernard, Rousseau, T.Johnson, Brown, Dawkins spring to mind. As do Edmunds, Gabe Davis, Douglas, Singletary... Expect lots of corners in the next couple drafts!

Way too much talk about the salary cap on this message board instead of talking football players and teams. That being said: Todd Gurley had so much promise coming out of Georgia, but Degenerative knee issues ruined his career. The message there is to be real careful who you invest big money in. There are a LOT of solid RB's in the NFL. And James Cook falls into that category. He is reasonably dynamic, but certainly not a unicorn in his abilities. He is worth an extension, at a reasonable price. If he will take $10 mill per for a 3 year extension, sounds about right. Otherwise, let him play out his contract, and test the market. Exactly like Tremaine Edmunds. And Gabe Davis. Beane knows what he is doing with contracts. I do not see an issue replacing Cook if and when the time comes. More important than overpaying an RB, is having a very good O line that most RB's will have success running behind. Beane needs to spend the bigger dollars on resigning Connor McGovern to anchor our O line for the next 5 years. I think that is the best use of resources then overpaying James Cook or any other RB.

Tremaine intimidated quarterbacks not to throw his way because of his length Any quarterback that ever did had a lot of success.. let's be real smart quarterbacks were targeting him because he was easier to Target than the other people on the field I mean Milano is better in coverage.. Bernard is better in coverage now ... He's not some coverage savant he had a 56 coverage grade this year If he was Sean McDermott's Buffalo version of Luke kuechly we would have paid him And I'm not comparing dolac to Tremaine Edmunds.. I'm saying we went from a first round pick in Edmunds to a mid round pick in Bernard and was singing hallelujah because how much better Bernard was in coverage

Depends on Rousseau’s contract. If I’m him I hit FA next offseason unless I get the bag from Buffalo. He’s not worth $20M-$25M, but some crappy team will do it (just like with Edmunds). The Bills shouldn’t do it, but with the Bernard extension it seems like they probably will. The Benford deal tells me that there is pressure on them to not backslide in 2025. They aren’t looking to take unnecessary risks that could cause a backslide (even if there is upside to doing so).

I'd imagine it's a big goal and priority for McDermott and Beane to never have a player stuck with the Franchise Tag. Those are usually situations that lead to unhappy players, and issues in the locker room. Either pay your guys (like White, Oliver, Josh, Knox, Taron, etc) or dont (like Edmunds).

But he's not younger than Edmunds, so.

That bit about the Bills and Eagles evening out the further you go back is only if you go back specifically to 2018. The reason Beane had high picks in 2018 had a lot to do with McDermott trading way back in 2017 to get higher to be able to pick a QB in 2018. So in 2017 the Eagles picked 14th while the Bills picked 27th. And you can't expect Ford to be All-Pro, he was a 2nd rounder. All-Pro would have been a very significant over-performance. Edmunds at 16 got two Pro Bowls, that's meeting expectations. Oliver has been a bit below expectations, but everyone has some of those. The Chiefs did indeed trade up for Mahomes, from 27th to 10th. And the Bills traded up for Allen. Traded up almost as far, from 21st to 7th in two steps. So if you want to give the Chiefs credit for savvy you have to do the same for the Bills.

**** But older than Tremaine Edmunds

Bills used to have a legit no-fly zone where they held teams under 200 yards passing about half the time which was absurd. I might argue in hindsight that Tremaine Edmunds leaving was the bigger loss...his wingspan and range in the middle of the field shut down a lot of passing concepts

He’s a better version of Tremaine Edmunds for his position. The Bills will want to keep him but they have their price. I don’t think they’ll give him the contract he’ll command on the open market

Has Edmunds been born yet?

Yeah I wasn't looking at 2nd team and I lumped pro bowl and all pro together for this purpose, but you come to the same point - it's not a defense built on athletic "freakazoids", it's a defense built on "Do Your Job". I agree with you about pro bowls, but they are a form of league-wide recognition, enough so that contract incentives are based off them, and yes, Tremaine made 2. And yes, Tre White was the closest thing we had to that athletically superior freakazoid and it hurt to lose him, and hurt more that Elam never developed into a player let alone a replacement. Everyone has draft "oops!" but that one hurt. I don't think we should overlook the impact on Bernard of 1) playing next to Dorian Williams for 11 weeks. He was kind of minding 2 gaps - his own, and the one Williams might, or might not, be minding. 2) He also was dealing with injuries - got back on the field after a torn pec in a week. That's unheard of, but it has to have been affecting him beyond his first game back. He also gave 1 whole game to an ankle injury. (I'm sure you don't want to hear it, but he also got married mid season. Even if he's doing 0 planning, the groom does need to be involved). Really the question with Bernard - he's got that smaller frame, no doubt he's tough as nails but he has to be going at 95% to make plays bigger dudes can make going at 80% so will he be durable longer-term? I think the thing the Bills really like Bernard is his on-field generalship. Part of it, of course, is who Edmunds was playing with. When you're a rookie playing with Zo Alexander, Matt Milano, Tre White, Dr Poyer, and Mr Hyde, there's not too much need for field generalship and in fact, it might not go over well. But when backups are playing, and as the roster churned, there was a need, and it took several years for Edmunds to develop that part of his game. I thought it was notable that there were vignettes in "mic'd up" of McDermott sending coaching messages on field through Micah Hyde at critical points in critical games. I thought it showed some in 2022 with Rousseau and when we lost Hyde and had Benford and Elam playing across from Dane Jackson. Bernard, from what I've seen, is more like a little Honey Badger. He don't care who you are or how many years you've played, he just cares where you are and what you're doing on the field and if it's not the right thing you'll hear about it - on the field, on the sidelines, and if need be afterward. Hopefully the baby will be getting more sleep by September and as long as he stays healthy, I'm confident he'll be fine.

Tremaine Edmunds ..... could not stop what was coming outside of the tackles even with his sideline to sideline speed cuz he was so late to recognize. If they funneled the run through the A gap he picked the B too soon. LBs gotta match this D line well regardless. Bills LBs + can do that now Just need better play in between the tackles perhaps

Not really. Definitely in free agency but he'll let Bills players walk if they can find a better deal elsewhere (Edmunds, Davis, Phillips, Wallace, etc.). As for Knox, TE's make a little more and have a longer shelf life than RB's so I understood the contract at the time as he looked great his 3rd year (587 receiving yards, 9 TD's). However, I didn't love the move as TE isn't a premium position. It's very possible that Cook's year last year will be the best of his career. Also, you can't use one bad extension to justify another potential bad extension.

And both are 10 years older than Edmunds

hopefully Bean drafts the correct people this time, unlike the last time he sold-out D heavy and over drafted Groot and then took Basham. Oh, and the time he took Elam in the first. And another time when he traded back into the first for Edmunds. I really hope we get a vet D player with our number 30 pick in a trade and get a 1 tech later in the draft. Grab FA WRs.

I don’t think many will argue that Rousseau is good enough for a 2nd contract but the price point is going to be the big deal. You’re right he’s 24 and will be 25 when/if he becomes a UFA. He plays a premium position and they might explode his market much like it did with Tremaine Edmunds. If we’re getting him for 17-20 AAV I can live with that if he’s going to get 23-30 AAV then I’ll pass