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https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/30834323/early-nfl-power-rankings-2021-where-do-super-bowl-champion-bucs-chiefs-rank

 

2. Buffalo Bills

2020 record: 13-3

Offseason in three or fewer words: We'll be back

They were perhaps the three words uttered most often by Bills players and staff following a loss to the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game. Buffalo is equipped to make another run in the AFC but will require some tweaks to do so. The Bills will need to hit in this year's draft as they do gymnastics with a diminishing salary cap. But with so many core players either on rookie deals or already locked in, they are built to make another run to the AFC title game. -- Marcel Louis-Jacques

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    I think they need to blow up the defensive line and stock it with younger, bigger, nastier talent. 
    In hindsight, letting J.Phillips and S. Lawson walk was a bigger loss than many thought ( including me). I’m not faulting Beane as I agreed with not paying them the money they got but their production was missed.

    I guess it depends on your point of view but I’m in the “ Your DBs look better with a good four man rush” camp. 
    I know it might appear risky but the Ends we have aren’t getting it done and I’m not holding out tremendous hope for Epenesa. He seems like a rotation guy/ I hope I’m wrong.

    That and O line help.

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1 minute ago, Buffalo Boy said:

    I think they need to blow up the defensive line and stock it with younger, bigger, nastier talent. 
    In hindsight, letting J.Phillips and S. Lawson walk was a bigger loss than many thought ( including me). I’m not faulting Beane as I agreed with not paying them the money they got but their production was missed.

    I guess it depends on your point of view but I’m in the “ Your DBs look better with a good four man rush” camp. 
    I know it might appear risky but the Ends we have aren’t getting it done and I’m not holding out tremendous hope for Epenesa. He seems like a rotation guy/ I hope I’m wrong.

    That and O line help.

 

I don't think Lawson or Phillips would have made a difference.  They both didn't produce with the Dolphins and Cards.  

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5 minutes ago, klos63 said:

We could have significant changes on both lines, 2nd CB, 2nd WR, TE, RB, LB... hard to make a sensible power ranking until we get past the draft at the earliest.

 

Oh yeah...offensive line will be much different.  

 

Dion Dawkins is the only guaranteed returning starter on the offensive line.

 

We may lose Williams to FA, Morse could get cut, Boettger's status is up in the air and I'm not sure if a healthy Ford is guaranteed a starting spot....I think Feliciano moves to center.  
 

Could have new starters at every position left tackle.

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16 minutes ago, Buffalo Boy said:

    I think they need to blow up the defensive line and stock it with younger, bigger, nastier talent. 
    In hindsight, letting J.Phillips and S. Lawson walk was a bigger loss than many thought ( including me). I’m not faulting Beane as I agreed with not paying them the money they got but their production was missed.

    I guess it depends on your point of view but I’m in the “ Your DBs look better with a good four man rush” camp. 
    I know it might appear risky but the Ends we have aren’t getting it done and I’m not holding out tremendous hope for Epenesa. He seems like a rotation guy/ I hope I’m wrong.

    That and O line help.

Agree that we should cut the guys we signed last year.  Keep Jerry, Ed, Harrison, Star, Aj, johnson and Zimmer.  Get rid of Jefferson, butler and Addison.  
 

I disagree about phillips and Shaq.  Both were next to useless this year and both the cards and fins are regretting that they can’t get out of either contract this offseason.  
 

While I haven’t dug deep into scouting pass rushers yet, Patrick Jones, from Pittsburgh has really impressive me so far.  6’5 260 and can get to the QB with multiple moves. If he’s there at 30, I could see us pulling the trigger

 

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21 minutes ago, Buffalo Boy said:

    I think they need to blow up the defensive line and stock it with younger, bigger, nastier talent. 
    In hindsight, letting J.Phillips and S. Lawson walk was a bigger loss than many thought ( including me). I’m not faulting Beane as I agreed with not paying them the money they got but their production was missed.

    I guess it depends on your point of view but I’m in the “ Your DBs look better with a good four man rush” camp. 
    I know it might appear risky but the Ends we have aren’t getting it done and I’m not holding out tremendous hope for Epenesa. He seems like a rotation guy/ I hope I’m wrong.

    That and O line help.

The defense actually improved a lot throughout the year. They do need a younger pass rusher to step up. They don't have to rip anything up, but an upgrade to Murphy and Williams is needed. Right now Hughes, Addison, and Epenesa are locks. Need to add a good pass rusher to complete the rotation. 

 

At DT one of Butler/Jefferson will likely be released for cap reasons and the return of Star. Could possibly replace both but I don't think they will. 

 

I think DL should be addressed via free agency. We've drafted DL very high recently. Let them continue to develop. 

 

At CB they will likely look to add a legit #2 CB. It may be time to spend a quality draft pick on a CB again. 1st or 2nd round. 

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57 minutes ago, Royale with Cheese said:

 

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/30834323/early-nfl-power-rankings-2021-where-do-super-bowl-champion-bucs-chiefs-rank

 

2. Buffalo Bills

2020 record: 13-3

Offseason in three or fewer words: We'll be back

They were perhaps the three words uttered most often by Bills players and staff following a loss to the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game. Buffalo is equipped to make another run in the AFC but will require some tweaks to do so. The Bills will need to hit in this year's draft as they do gymnastics with a diminishing salary cap. But with so many core players either on rookie deals or already locked in, they are built to make another run to the AFC title game. -- Marcel Louis-Jacques

 

Wait a sec. I read on here that the Bills are like 15 players away from being competitive. Don't they need a new defensive line, new LB core, three new interior o-linemen, a big bruising RB, and a very  speedy RB to be competitive? We are still 3, maybe 4, years away! 

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16 minutes ago, Royale with Cheese said:

 

I don't think Lawson or Phillips would have made a difference.  They both didn't produce with the Dolphins and Cards.  

To be fair Phillips got hurt and think he a better player than Butler yet neither one, despite their size, is the one tech DT we lacked. 

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54 minutes ago, Buffalo Boy said:

    I think they need to blow up the defensive line and stock it with younger, bigger, nastier talent. 
    In hindsight, letting J.Phillips and S. Lawson walk was a bigger loss than many thought ( including me). I’m not faulting Beane as I agreed with not paying them the money they got but their production was missed.

    I guess it depends on your point of view but I’m in the “ Your DBs look better with a good four man rush” camp. 
    I know it might appear risky but the Ends we have aren’t getting it done and I’m not holding out tremendous hope for Epenesa. He seems like a rotation guy/ I hope I’m wrong.

    That and O line help.

Not paying them was the right move but their replacements were horrible. Get young hungry players on the front 7.....

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44 minutes ago, klos63 said:

We could have significant changes on both lines, 2nd CB, 2nd WR, TE, RB, LB... hard to make a sensible power ranking until we get past the draft at the earliest.

Lol. So make the AFC Championship game and not have serious cap issues but make significant changes to most of the roster? 

 

No. We'll see 2-3 significant changes but TE is really the only significant change we can expect. Everything else will be based on cap and opportunity to upgrade. 

 

I think CB opposite White is the next most likely change. Beyond that I don't know. 

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1 hour ago, Buffalo Boy said:

    I think they need to blow up the defensive line and stock it with younger, bigger, nastier talent. 
    In hindsight, letting J.Phillips and S. Lawson walk was a bigger loss than many thought ( including me). I’m not faulting Beane as I agreed with not paying them the money they got but their production was missed.

    I guess it depends on your point of view but I’m in the “ Your DBs look better with a good four man rush” camp. 
    I know it might appear risky but the Ends we have aren’t getting it done and I’m not holding out tremendous hope for Epenesa. He seems like a rotation guy/ I hope I’m wrong.

    That and O line help.

 

 The guys we replaced them with out-performed those guys.  Addison--who had a bit of a down here-- still had more sacks than Shaq. And if you combine his production with AJ Epenesa's--who came on well as the season progressed--the move to let Shaq go made a lot of sense.  Phillips was banged up a lot this year in Arizona. 

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51 minutes ago, Royale with Cheese said:

 

I don't think Lawson or Phillips would have made a difference.  They both didn't produce with the Dolphins and Cards.  

100%. I've seen a decent amount of posters on here missing Jordan Phillips, but why? I liked the guy for hyping up the defense and he was good value given that we picked him up for nothing, but he was an atrocious run defender and the All-22 tape showed that most of his sacks were either coverage ones or with a huge assist from our other d-linemen (the stats looked great, but didn't match up with what we saw on the field). He wasn't worth the contract he got from Arizona and he would not have done much if anything to fix our defensive problems this season. 

 

I view Shaq as a much better player especially as a run defender and we likely could have used him on the edge at times. But again his stats before with the Bills and this year with Miami didn't match the contract he signed. I think he has hit his ceiling and he's just a slightly above-average edge setter who can give you 5 sacks per season. 

 

With Star coming back, Ed Oliver hitting Year 3 (a lot of other Bills have taken huge leaps in their third season!) and hopefully not being misused as a 1T anymore, Horrible Harry back to 100%/playing well at the end of 2020, and some more development expected from Epenesa, the defensive line shouldn't be in terrible shape. I'd probably like to see us cut Addison/Butler/Jefferson and use the cap savings to hopefully do a better job of bringing in some FA talent as well as drafting a couple guys even if it's on Day 2/3. More beef in the middle and more speed on the edge please! Go Bills!

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1 minute ago, LABILLBACKER said:

Not paying them was the right move but their replacements were horrible. Get young hungry players on the front 7.....

McDermott had a pretty solid point at his first post-season press conference that they did not get to play together in pre-season or regular passes (Allen and Diggs vibing was the exception to the rule). However, their contracts are also the easiest to walk away from. Rewatching games, Mario Addison appeared to me to still have an impact and was a key part of the mental make-up of the team, so I hope they restructure him. Quinton Jefferson, I just did not notice, practically at all. Vernon Butler can go. I'm also hoping Justin Zimmer can get more snaps next year as there's a slight chance he might be something special. Star's absence would seem to have been noticed since we were the top team against tight ends his two years and just lousy before and after, so I look forward to him coming back. Epenesa seemed to be coming on at the end, so I'm excited to see what he can do. Ed Oliver, as many have said here, would likely benefit from having a huge player in the center, and hopefully that's Star and he gets back on track towards earning his Top Ten pick status.

 

So, we may not need a whole rebuild. However, one or two new players through draft or FA would be good. And that might necessitate a lot of contract ultimatums with the current players. 

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55 minutes ago, klos63 said:

We could have significant changes on both lines, 2nd CB, 2nd WR, TE, RB, LB... hard to make a sensible power ranking until we get past the draft at the earliest.

 

The same can be said for mock drafts. Neither are necessarily meant to be 'sensible' but are more an exercise in speculation and fun to pass the time and fill a void.

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