Ronin Posted February 17, 2019 Share Posted February 17, 2019 (edited) 3 hours ago, folz said: I agree with the first bold statement, that the first draft was McDermott's draft (not Whaley's), although he was relying on Whaley's team's scouting info, and that is probably why, as another poster stated, he may have gone with guys from the senior bowl because they were players that he and his coaches actually got to see/interview/scout themselves. No, what I said was that Phil McGeoghan was McD's choice for WRs coach, who coached Jones at EC in Jones' Sr. season. It was him, again, McD's choice, that fueled that decision. He's gone now, which says something. So it wasn't Whaley's scouting staff at all on that one, it was entirely McD's choice for WR and therefore ultimately McD's decision. Quote At best, this was going to be 3 year rebuild (maybe 4 years since Beane wasn't here the first season). Fair enough on Beane, but McD doesn't get off that way. Either way, both are now all-in on Allen. The team turned four of their first five picks ranging from 12th overall to 65th (1st pick in the 3rd) into Allen. No way they get out of this if Allen doesn't become a franchise QB. Quote And sure, I'd rather have Smith-Shuster than Zay and to this point Zay has not lived up to his draft status yet, but he's shown improvement and he's heading into his third year, which for many WRs is the breakout year. Let's at least give him one more season before labeling him a total bust. I didn't say that he was a total bust, but in the 2018 version of the NFL where passing is made easy, a whole lot more is expected than a WR that ranked 176th in catch%, notably up from his rookie season when he was near DFL. He hasn't posted a 100-yard game yet and PFF has him rated as an average WR, which IMO is generous. Either way, and my opinion aside, that's hardly what one expects from a WR drafted at the top of the 2nd round and one that everyone (except for me, I warned, even before the draft) ranted and raved about. He definitely is a partial bust tho. I haven't heard anyone claim that he's met expectations. It typically doesn't take WRs three years to ante up in the NFL anymore. That perhaps was the case 20 years ago, but in the nowadays pass-happy NFL it's far from the case. Like I've said before here, five WRs drafted after him have posted better numbers. Three rookie WRs posted better numbers this year as rookies than Jones did in his second season. Three more posted within 100 yards of him this season. 11 rookie WRs this season posted more yards than Jones did in his rookie season. Just sayin'. I'm not hingin' my hopes on Jones. Quote Let's see about this spotty history of 1st to 3rd round draft picks: 2017: Tre White, Zay Jones, Dion Dawkins 2018: Josh Allen, Tremaine Edmunds, Harrison Phillips So, what? You're calling Jones and Dawkins definite busts and you don't expect Josh to be the guy? Apart from the fact that I was referring to the offense, ... White had a great rookie year and a major sophomore slump. Graded average this year by PFF.. Jones graded average as well despite ranking 176th in catch% this season and 210th (out of 212) last year. Dawkins graded above-average by them but his performance was inconsistent. Allen was ranked poorly as a passer. Forget his rushing, it won't factor into whether he becomes a franchise QB or not. If he doens't make a major leap in his short-medium game this season there's no way McBeane can turn things around in order to save their jobs. Edmunds I was high on before the draft and I expect to be around for the duration if they don't bungle his contract at some point. I expect him to the best MLB that we've ever had. Phillips played OK, PFF has him as average, which sounds about right, perhaps a wee bit generous. He had no sacks, few pressures, not sure why anyone would think that he's got a roster spot tied up. Either way, even by PFF's standards, there's not one impact player there that they had rated above average this season. To me that leaves room for improvement. Lots. You don't go into the draft in rounds 1 & 2 hoping to draft average players. The expectation there is to draft ringers, impact players. Edmunds will get there, White will if he rebounds from his soph slump, but otherwise there's not an impact player in the bunch yet. We can argue whether or not they'll improve next season, they may, they may not. But insisting that they all will is a fool's mission as well. Either way, let's not leapfrog the point here, the point is that there's a ton of work to be done on the offensive side of the ball and they haven't exactly been good with that. Let's not forget what their (McBeane's) "solutions" on offense have been: Benjamin, Matthews, Murphy, Cadet, Thompson, Holmes, Ducasse, and Bodine. Hardly impressive. Edited February 17, 2019 by TaskersGhost Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldTimer1960 Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 15 hours ago, TaskersGhost said: Let's not forget what their (McBeane's) "solutions" on offense have been: Benjamin, Matthews, Murphy, Cadet, Thompson, Holmes, Ducasse, and Bodine. Hardly impressive. I think that those “solutions”, as you call them, were always stop-gaps not players that they were counting on as long-term solutions. I could give you that the trade for Benjamin was a shot at finding a player that they hoped would be a building block, but they also made that move with short-term intent to help them when they found themselves unexpectedly in playoff contention. That move didn’t work out, but the rest of the players you listed were never brought in with the thought that they were setting the stage for long-term success with those acquisitions. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_Formerly_of_Roch Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 Just heard Kipers latest draft he has Metcalf going to Buffalo at #9. He has the TE from Iowa going at #8. And yes I know 20 people will likely state "what does Kiper know" He did state more than once during the interview, "What I'm hearing" So his mock isn't just him going into a room and deciding who he thinks are the top 100 or whatever players. He's getting feedback from teams front office's telling him what they also think. Every team in the league talks with the front offices of other teams themselves and gets some feedback. I'm sure Beane and Gettleman are talking, not enough to give each others own respective plans away, but enough to get a sense on what other teams are thinking of doing. Are the teams likely blowing smoke, sure, but if the smoke from 5 teams all blows in the same direction, that likely does mean the wind is blowing in that direction. Will there be some shifts, certainly. For everyone still on this "the obvious pick was JJ Smith-Schuster over Zay Jones". Do you actually think Schusters numbers would have been anything even close with TT then a combo of 4 different people throwing him the ball this past season. The Bills have had some of the worst WR/QB play in the past two seasons, assuming Allen is the answer, that should improve, will see. It's hard to find much data now that goes back to prior to the 2017 draft but the little I could find one article ranked Jones as the better choice another had Smith-Schuster as the 9th best overall offense threat which pretty much included any position on the offense except the line and Jones was 16th, hardly enough to say "the obvious pick was JJ Smith-Schuster" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillsSbSoon Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 On 2/17/2019 at 2:39 AM, MJS said: Beane has only had one draft. It takes a minimum of 3 to establish a pattern. McDermott has been involved in 2. Still not enough to establish tendencies, plus he's not the GM. I felt like i had a pretty good read on what whaley was doing after his first year. He went after the measurables guys that played in the big time conferences and programs. The first round pick was always from the acc or sec. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TigerJ Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 Beane likes maturity, but the Edmunds pick shows he's willing to take a young player if everything else checks out and his upside is high enough. Generally speaking, it looks to me as if Beane is more careful than some GMs to avoid players who have baggage that could become a distraction for the team. That doesn't necessarily mean he'll only pick goody two shoes players, but if they have a past, they need to have moved beyond it and there is no risk of it becoming a pattern in the future. The other common thread is that all Beane picks seem to be passionate about playing the game of football. They have no problem with putting in the extra time, be it work with personal coaches on mechanics, film study, or whatever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldTimer1960 Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 4 hours ago, TigerJ said: Beane likes maturity, but the Edmunds pick shows he's willing to take a young player if everything else checks out and his upside is high enough. Generally speaking, it looks to me as if Beane is more careful than some GMs to avoid players who have baggage that could become a distraction for the team. That doesn't necessarily mean he'll only pick goody two shoes players, but if they have a past, they need to have moved beyond it and there is no risk of it becoming a pattern in the future. The other common thread is that all Beane picks seem to be passionate about playing the game of football. They have no problem with putting in the extra time, be it work with personal coaches on mechanics, film study, or whatever. Spot on and I think that Edmunds is quite mature for his young age and appears to be very smart and takes his job seriously. He was right in Beane’s wheelhouse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronin Posted February 26, 2019 Share Posted February 26, 2019 (edited) On 2/18/2019 at 10:15 AM, OldTimer1960 said: I think that those “solutions”, as you call them, were always stop-gaps not players that they were counting on as long-term solutions. I could give you that the trade for Benjamin was a shot at finding a player that they hoped would be a building block, but they also made that move with short-term intent to help them when they found themselves unexpectedly in playoff contention. That move didn’t work out, but the rest of the players you listed were never brought in with the thought that they were setting the stage for long-term success with those acquisitions. Perhaps, but I don't think they were as "stop-gap" as you seem to think. Remember, we traded away a mid-3rd-round pick to get Benjamin, who had only one year left on his contract. If that was as a stop-gap then it was tremendously short-sighted. So McD can pick his poison there. You don't trade away a mid-3rd round pick for a one-year stop-gap player. Same for Matthews, for whom we traded away Darby for. Darby's a good serviceable CB, you don't trade away players like that for a "stop-gap." Granted, we got a very late 3rd-round pick in exchange as well that we used to draft Harrison Phillips, but right now if you asked the average person would they rather have Matthews and Phillips, or Darby, what do you think they'd say? I'd take Darby in a passing league. Phillips hasn't done anything noteworthy and on top of that he was a noted run stuffer, again, not exactly the concern in the modern NFL. Which brings up another point, this is a passing league that is predicated upon offense. I pointed out a couple of months ago that in order to make the playoffs these days, apart from dumb luck and "help" from other teams, which typically means you're not playoff caliber if you can't earn a spot outright, the teams that used to make the playoffs traditionally had top-10 defenses. This year none of the four finalists had anything close to a top-10 defense. All had remarkable passing offenses during the regular season however. As of now, McBeane have been building a team the wrong way to compete in the modern NFL. To that point, over half of this past season's sack total was generated by three players in their back-9, with one of them having retired. Lorax is on that doorstep as well. Where is the emphasis on new players to rush the opposing QB? They'll sink or swim on Allen's abilities as a passer. Nothing else is going to matter re: their futures here in Buffalo. But right now their neglecting of the offense, either by poor moves or outright neglect as you imply, hasn't put in place the offense to give Allen the best chances of succeeding. Let's be honest too, none of their moves except for Allen and Jones have involved a lot of capital, whether it be compensation or draft capital, and Jones has not worked out anywhere close to their stated expectations. His gawdy numbers in only his senior year in college predictably did not transfer to the NFL, nor will they. That should have been obvious before that draft to anyone that had studied Jones' splits. Otherwise, all they've done is scrape the bottom of the barrel of free agency or use day-3 draft picks in a poke-n-hope style regarding the offense. We'll see if those work out and stick, but right now there's not a whole lot on offense to be excited about. There's not one above-average OL-man on the team, most of the starters are below-average. And frankly, not seeing that Shady's performance, for whatever reason, would drop off since he turned 30, or thereabouts, also doesn't say much for their understanding of offensive players and talent as history lays out in no unmistakable manner. No great OL-men. No RB No proven #1/2 WRs No bona fide starting TE It's a lot to ask a team to put all that in place in one offseason, even two. They'll essentially have to ignore the D for now in order to even have a shot at it. I'm not sure I see that happening given their propensity to want to develop the D, which again, is the bass ackwards approach in the modern NFL. In today's NFL the very first thing you want in place is the passing game. Secondly a passing D. Then a running game. Lastly the running defense. NFL games these days, sadly IMO, are track meets. Gone are the days of Bruce and the D leading the team to victory. The rules favor offense now in no small way. Edited February 26, 2019 by TaskersGhost Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Now Moment Posted February 26, 2019 Share Posted February 26, 2019 They are looking for coachable players to put into their system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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