People should be worried about our Depth

[BigDingus]

One thing that I consistently notice each off season is the fan predictions always leave out a very glaring issue - players get injured. 

By now, we should all know how quickly 1 key injury can derail the outcome of games, let alone several piling up over the course of the year. Sometimes a roster looks great on paper, but dig a little deeper and see who's sitting behind who, and how that will impact the team in the very likely case a player goes down.

Last year we had injuries to Jordan Matthews, Charles Clay, Tyrod Taylor, Zay Jones, Cordy Glenn, Shaq Lawson, Kelvin Benjamin, Nate Peterman,  Tre White, John Miller, Brandon Tate, Nick O'Leary, and many more. 

Years prior, we had key people hurt for extended periods of games (which include many who I already named) like Marcell Dareus, LeSean McCoy, Sammy Watkins, Robert Woods, Marquis Goodwin, Ronald Darby, Stephon Gilmore, Eric Wood, Cyrus Kouandjio, Percy Harvin (ha), Aaron Williams, Nigel Bradham, Manny Lawson, etc.

Every team has injuries, but many teams are setup far better than the Bills when it comes to replacing those guys & the production they bring.

Anyone who says they have "confidence" in our WR corp as it stands is either lying, or just crazy. Same goes for the O-line... Neither unit was good last year, but at least the line had some positive attributes. In 2018, we lost all 3 of our best players in Glenn, Incognito and Wood. We're left with (potential backups in parenthesis) -

LT - Dion Dawkins (Conor McDermott)
LG - Ryan Groy (Wyatt Teller) 

C - Russell Bodine  or Adam Redmond

RG - John Miller (Vlad Duccasse)

RT - Jordan Mills (Marshall Newhouse)

 

It's already unstable as it is, but with the depth we have, we're are so paper thin that a single injury would essentially be a death sentence to whoever is QB. And our run game? We significantly regressed in 2017, and likely will be inferior to that in 2018.

The WR group we have is again, even worse than last season. We've got -

WR1 - Kelvin Benjamin
WR2 - Jeremy Kerley?  I mean, he's got the highest average yards per season at 388.......... None of the guys on our roster have been #2 guys in the league

WR3 - Andre Holmes or Zay Jones? They've got the next highest average after Rod Streater, with 316 yards per season played, so....yay?

Other potential stars:

 

-Quan Bray, 3 years in the league with a total of 75 yards

-Kaelin Clay, an even better prospect, as he has 85 total yards in 2 seasons.

-Malachi Dupre, 1 year in the league, crowning achievement was being promoted to the active roster for week 17's game against the Dolphins. Didn't play a down.
-Robert Foster, rookie, 4 seasons at Alabama averaging 97 yards a year.

-Brandon Reilly, 1 year on the Bills practice squad, promoted to active roster for final 4 games, didn't play a down.

-Rod Streater, had 2 decent years in 2012 & 2013, has done less than nothing since. 
 

Then we've got the other rookies, Ray-Ray McCloud, Cam Phillips, and Austin Proehl...Obviously most of these guys won't even make the roster, but the ones that do offer limited skillsets, no experience, or a combination of both. If Benjamin goes down, we are beyond screwed. And it should be noted that Benjamin has never started all 16 games in his career...so that's almost a certainty.

And beyond the obvious, here's some other thin positions:

 

QB - AJ McCarron, Josh Allen & Nathan Peterman: don't need to get too deep here, this one's obvious. A combined 6 starts between them, 4 coming from McCarron. Peterman had the record INT game and the snow game for the other 2. Allen was always touted as the "potential" guy who's stock was based solely on looks, arm strength and physicality, and not on-field play. By everyone's account, the most raw QB in the 1st round whose promise is based on if he can be developed properly. Needless to say playing with this line & this WR corps would do him no favors, so expectation is for him to sit, learn & start in the future. 

RB - LeSean McCoy: although he's generally reliable for most of the season, he's only started all 16 games 3 times in 9 years, including 1 season with the Bills (last year). He's easily our best player, but production has declined and will be 30 heading into the 2018 season. Behind him we have the also 30 Chris Ivory, who's better than Tolbert, but that's not saying much. Also has a history with injuries.

CB - Tre White & Vontae Davis: even if just one goes down, that leaves us with next to no options. We have Breon Borders, Ryan Carter, Phillip Gaines, Taron Johnson, Levi Wallace, and Lafayette Pitts...a bunch of late round/undrafted rookies & practice squad fodder. Davis is also 30 & coming off an injury, so it'd be a miracle if our starting duo plays most of the season.

 

And yes, there are other soft spots as well, but those spots are either covered better up front, or have more experience backing them. Every team has "needs" or positions they're weak in, but for a team many on this board are confident can make the playoffs, I can't see another playoff contending roster with nearly as many holes.

People need to temper their expectations and remember to factor in injuries and depth. It's always a battle of attrition, but there are certainly teams that have positioned themselves worse than others in that regard. I'm hopeful Allen will become what the Bills want him to become, but when factoring in injuries & our limited depth, this year will likely only do him a disservice if he's the starter.

 

[Augie]

Yes. 

[Robert James]

Given the amount of concern people express about the likely starting line-up, I think you can be confident there is no shortage of people being concerned about the bench.

 

[Augie]

 

 

Why does it seem like injuries pile up at one position? It’s one thing to lose a WR, it’s something else to lose several. Remember signing guys off the astreet to play RB a couple seasons ago? We don’t want to be signing guys off the street to play WR.....our starters are challenging enough. 

[oldmanfan]

I would imagine if you went on other teams' sites their fans are worried about depth too.

[JPP]

9 minutes ago, BigDingus said:

One thing that I consistently notice each off season is the fan predictions always leave out a very glaring issue - players get injured. 

By now, we should all know how quickly 1 key injury can derail the outcome of games, let alone several piling up over the course of the year. Sometimes a roster looks great on paper, but dig a little deeper and see who's sitting behind who, and how that will impact the team in the very likely case a player goes down.

Last year we had injuries to Jordan Matthews, Charles Clay, Tyrod Taylor, Zay Jones, Cordy Glenn, Shaq Lawson, Kelvin Benjamin, Nate Peterman,  Tre White, John Miller, Brandon Tate, Nick O'Leary, and many more. 

Years prior, we had key people hurt for extended periods of games (which include many who I already named) like Marcell Dareus, LeSean McCoy, Sammy Watkins, Robert Woods, Marquis Goodwin, Ronald Darby, Stephon Gilmore, Eric Wood, Cyrus Kouandjio, Percy Harvin (ha), Aaron Williams, Nigel Bradham, Manny Lawson, etc.

Every team has injuries, but many teams are setup far better than the Bills when it comes to replacing those guys & the production they bring.

Anyone who says they have "confidence" in our WR corp as it stands is either lying, or just crazy. Same goes for the O-line... Neither unit was good last year, but at least the line had some positive attributes. In 2018, we lost all 3 of our best players in Glenn, Incognito and Wood. We're left with (potential backups in parenthesis) -

LT - Dion Dawkins (Conor McDermott)
LG - Ryan Groy (Wyatt Teller) 

C - Russell Bodine  or Adam Redmond

RG - John Miller (Vlad Duccasse)

RT - Jordan Mills (Marshall Newhouse)

 

It's already unstable as it is, but with the depth we have, we're are so paper thin that a single injury would essentially be a death sentence to whoever is QB. And our run game? We significantly regressed in 2017, and likely will be inferior to that in 2018.

The WR group we have is again, even worse than last season. We've got -

WR1 - Kelvin Benjamin
WR2 - Jeremy Kerley?  I mean, he's got the highest average yards per season at 388.......... None of the guys on our roster have been #2 guys in the league

WR3 - Andre Holmes or Zay Jones? They've got the next highest average after Rod Streater, with 316 yards per season played, so....yay?

Other potential stars:

 

-Quan Bray, 3 years in the league with a total of 75 yards

-Kaelin Clay, an even better prospect, as he has 85 total yards in 2 seasons.

-Malachi Dupre, 1 year in the league, crowning achievement was being promoted to the active roster for week 17's game against the Dolphins. Didn't play a down.
-Robert Foster, rookie, 4 seasons at Alabama averaging 97 yards a year.

-Brandon Reilly, 1 year on the Bills practice squad, promoted to active roster for final 4 games, didn't play a down.

-Rod Streater, had 2 decent years in 2012 & 2013, has done less than nothing since. 
 

Then we've got the other rookies, Ray-Ray McCloud, Cam Phillips, and Austin Proehl...Obviously most of these guys won't even make the roster, but the ones that do offer limited skillsets, no experience, or a combination of both. If Benjamin goes down, we are beyond screwed. And it should be noted that Benjamin has never started all 16 games in his career...so that's almost a certainty.

And beyond the obvious, here's some other thin positions:

 

QB - AJ McCarron, Josh Allen & Nathan Peterman: don't need to get too deep here, this one's obvious. A combined 6 starts between them, 4 coming from McCarron. Peterman had the record INT game and the snow game for the other 2. Allen was always touted as the "potential" guy who's stock was based solely on looks, arm strength and physicality, and not on-field play. By everyone's account, the most raw QB in the 1st round whose promise is based on if he can be developed properly. Needless to say playing with this line & this WR corps would do him no favors, so expectation is for him to sit, learn & start in the future. 

RB - LeSean McCoy: although he's generally reliable for most of the season, he's only started all 16 games 3 times in 9 years, including 1 season with the Bills (last year). He's easily our best player, but production has declined and will be 30 heading into the 2018 season. Behind him we have the also 30 Chris Ivory, who's better than Tolbert, but that's not saying much. Also has a history with injuries.

CB - Tre White & Vontae Davis: even if just one goes down, that leaves us with next to no options. We have Breon Borders, Ryan Carter, Phillip Gaines, Taron Johnson, Levi Wallace, and Lafayette Pitts...a bunch of late round/undrafted rookies & practice squad fodder. Davis is also 30 & coming off an injury, so it'd be a miracle if our starting duo plays most of the season.

 

And yes, there are other soft spots as well, but those spots are either covered better up front, or have more experience backing them. Every team has "needs" or positions they're weak in, but for a team many on this board are confident can make the playoffs, I can't see another playoff contending roster with nearly as many holes.

People need to temper their expectations and remember to factor in injuries and depth. It's always a battle of attrition, but there are certainly teams that have positioned themselves worse than others in that regard. I'm hopeful Allen will become what the Bills want him to become, but when factoring in injuries & our limited depth, this year will likely only do him a disservice if he's the starter.

 

It does seem like we always had problems with depth on this team......just making a comment on the running back position though.....we are currently in a much better place now compared to last season with our "outstanding" # 2 in big mike tolbert (sarcasm of course) that we had last season........I think the addition of chris ivory will be welcomed addition plus hopefully cadet will continue to progress (hopefully he's fully recuperated from the injury that is)......Not too much worried about our defence compared to our O-line and again lack of WR's.......

[Augie]

6 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

I would imagine if you went on other teams' sites their fans are worried about depth too.

 

Well, they’re just a bunch of whiners! We have legit worries!   ?

[Punching Bag]

23 minutes ago, BigDingus said:

Anyone who says they have "confidence" in our WR corp as it stands is either lying, or just crazy. Same goes for the O-line... Neither unit was good last year, but at least the line had some positive attributes. In 2018, we lost all 3 of our best players in Glenn, Incognito and Wood. We're left with (potential backups in parenthesis) -

 

Glenn was NOT one of our best players and if you believe so you are (quoting you) "either lying, or just crazy."

[fansince88]

Well, ok.

1 minute ago, Limeaid said:

 

Glenn was NOT one of our best players and if you believe so you are (quoting you) "either lying, or just crazy."

He was on those 10 plays he was in.     

[Aussie Joe]

I’m actually worried about some of the starters, never mind the depth.. 

[Bangarang]

I try not to worry about things I have no control over.

[The Red King]

42 minutes ago, JPP said:

It does seem like we always had problems with depth on this team......just making a comment on the running back position though.....we are currently in a much better place now compared to last season with our "outstanding" # 2 in big mike tolbert (sarcasm of course) that we had last season........I think the addition of chris ivory will be welcomed addition plus hopefully cadet will continue to progress (hopefully he's fully recuperated from the injury that is)......Not too much worried about our defence compared to our O-line and again lack of WR's.......

 

Not always.  The Comeback was spearheaded by backups.  ?

 

When you're a bad team, you have a hard enough time filling the starting spot with quality players.  Very rarely does a team fill in the backups until their starting 22 are solid.  At the moment the Bills are...well...not solid.  Too many holes still in offense starter spots to worry about backups.  Now, if Buffalo can stabalize their starters in the next year or two, expect the staff to start padding the roster with quality backups.  Until then, yeah, we're gonna have very shaky depth.

[baskingridgebillsfan]

the Bills and every other team 

[GunnerBill]

Our depth? I am still worried about multiple starting spots. On offense particularly the image of this team is still very much a work in progress.

[John from Riverside]

It’s a youth movement and a on the go rebiuld

last year they made the playoffs with the same situation they will either perform or they wont

 

there is something to be said about these guys entering their second year with the coaches especially the defensive coaches

[JPP]

50 minutes ago, The Red King said:

 

Not always.  The Comeback was spearheaded by backups.  ?

 

When you're a bad team, you have a hard enough time filling the starting spot with quality players.  Very rarely does a team fill in the backups until their starting 22 are solid.  At the moment the Bills are...well...not solid.  Too many holes still in offense starter spots to worry about backups.  Now, if Buffalo can stabalize their starters in the next year or two, expect the staff to start padding the roster with quality backups.  Until then, yeah, we're gonna have very shaky depth.

I do agree....my main concern or well i think the biggest concern is the offence.....the line was pretty woeful for the most part of the season but did seem to come together very late in the season...can they build on this with the guys we got now?  The backfield im more confident now than what we had last season however since being predominately a running offence our chances hinges on if these guys on the line can further improve....it does hurt that incognito is gone.....im just hopeful that we dont regress again on the offence.....got a new QB at the helm whomever it maybe....we may essentially improve on the passing game from what Taylor provided but if the line regresses so will the offence on a whole.....time will tell i suppose....

 

[3rdand12]

2 hours ago, Robert James said:

Given the amount of concern people express about the likely starting line-up, I think you can be confident there is no shortage of people being concerned about the bench.

 

you cannot be overly cautious in these matters 

[MakeBuffaloGreatAgain]

Why don’t we have pro bowlers 5 deep at each position?(that’s what she said)

 

Curse you McBeane!

[3rdand12]

1 hour ago, Bangarang said:

I try not to worry about things I have no control over.

perhaps you should worry ? just a thought

[PromoTheRobot]

Okay, I'm worried. Better?

2 minutes ago, MakeBuffaloGreatAgain said:

Why don’t we have pro bowlers 5 deep at each position?(that’s what she said)

 

Curse you McBeane!

Like every other team.