Alphadawg7

I have seen this by posters here too, but quite honestly I think it goes without saying our coaches, scouts, and front office knows quite a bit more about who fits their scheme. So them taking him in the 2nd makes a pretty strong statement they aren't worry about him fitting into our scheme and kind of nullifies that pre-draft concern by anyone around here. And there were other players at a number of positions we could have taken at that spot that would have made sense if they felt he was a scheme fit issue.

I am just gonna say it...I don't care about what draft slot a player was taken, that is only something fans and media care about, not front offices or coaches. Once the draft is over, what you do on the field is all that matters. There is one team that has gotten low marks whose draft I think is being grossly undervalued, and that is the Detroit Lions. I said all this after day 2, and still feel the same way now. They are getting low marks mostly over something as trivial as "draft slot" mainly because of Gibbs going at 12 and some feel Campbell was a reach at 18 (I don't). But literally, draft slot grading is absolutely the worst and least accurate way to grade a draft. When you remove that and look at who they landed, how they fit into their team, and the impact it could have on this franchise, then I really like this draft. In the first 5 picks...the Lions added: Top LB, Top S, 2nd best RB, 2nd best receiving TE, and a QB with upside. 4 of them are sure fire contributors this year, including 3 starters. RB - Gibbs - 2nd best RB in the draft with immense upside being added to an already high scoring offense. Probably splits time early on, but could push to start as the season wears on, especially if they trade Swift as it sounds like that could happen. Even last year, Swift seemed to give way to Jamaal as the lead back at times. I think Swift has somewhat fallen out of favor there, maybe over durability, and probably gets moved. LB - Campbell - This is a Dan Campbell kind of guy and was the best LB in the draft. Day 1 starter on a team that really needed a LB. TE - LaPorta - Easily the 2nd best offensive weapon at TE in the draft and instant starter. Adding him and Gibbs into an already high octane offense should insure they are among the top offenses in the league again. S - Branch - arguably the best Safety in the draft and a major need for them who should again be a day 1 starter. QB - Hooker - Top of the 2nd tier QB class of this draft, who has starter level potential to develop as a quality backup, someone to push Goff down the road, or develop into a trade asset. Either way, great value where they got him compared to where most thought he might go (late first or 2nd). Time will tell if those players succeed or not in the NFL, but looking at the Lions roster, I have to say this feels like a strong draft for them today.

Wait...you think they might cut or trade O'Cyrus who we just took in the 2nd round? He was one of your bolded players you mentioned.

I could see how that could have easily been the case, good observation. When we took Kiko they said he kept popping to them when they were scouting Dion. I bet this happens a lot when guys are scouting players to be honest.

Im actually optimistic about the D this year, excited to see McD call the plays

His pros and cons kind of read like a poor mans DK Metcalf when he was coming out...which is fine by me for a 5th round pick.

No chance he is active over those guys, but he could be active as a 6th WR if he proves special teams value and he has experience on ST. That will be the ticket to his making the 53 and even more so to be active on Sundays. If he isn't a starter on ST, he can still make the 53 given his size, but he will have a hard time being active without injuries.

Based on his size, he could have value too on getting some reps on running plays for his potential as a WR blocker and still be able to go out on a play action play as well. Something that could be valuable again on key down and shorts and red zone plays. One thing we lacked last year was size and physicality. And when you factor in the kind of bad weather games we can see at home later in the season, getting a guy on the field who can both be physical as a receiver or a blocker could get him some snaps this year if he makes the team. If he has ST value, he should make this roster and might even get some snaps in those big packages.

I had my eye on WR Boutte from LSU personally for his upside and don't know much about Shorter. But like the idea of grabbing a big target

Its certainly possible, there was a lot of pre-draft chatter that WR's weren't as high on some boards as people think and that some teams only had 1 with a first round grade. Im sure that varied heavily between teams too.

My concern is more about Dorsey, in fact, all about Dorsey. I love Kincaid the prospect as a weapon, but Dorsey last year IMHO struggled bad with getting the talent on the roster properly involved in the offense. With the slot being a struggle all year, we didn't feature Knox more or try and get Shakir more established. Cook and Hines were brought in to be pass catching RB's then we didn't use Cook much that way and Hines got 11 total touches only. But...there is more optimism here I think than most the cases above. In all those cases, they were drafted to be the teams primary TE. We already have a primary TE, and Kincaid was drafted to be a weapon primarily and more of a big slot. Beane jokingly called it 11.5 personnel. So I think there is more opportunity to get Kincaid involved in the offense given that will be his primary role. The one good thing though is we have a 1st & 4th round pick invested in Kincaid. Pressure is on for Dorsey to get him involved. The reality is this team has a lot of mouths to feed and there is only 1 football. So I think 40-50 receptions, 450-600 yards and 4-6 TD's feels like a reasonable expectation year 1. We still have Diggs, Davis, Knox, Sherfield, Shakir, Harty, and our RB's that will all be involved in the pass game. He has the potential to put up that 1000 yard season of course, just might be hard with all these other guys here too.

Why you are hung up on this notion to "prove" Dallas 100% for sure would take Kincaid is a bit puzzling. No team knows 100% for sure what another team will do, teams trade up under the assumption there is a strong enough chance the player might not reach you, so you pay the price to make sure you get him. Bills CLEARLY felt Kincaid could go to Dallas OR another team who would trade up with either Jags or Dallas ahead of us. They felt the risk was high enough to make the move. Proving any of the risks real is completely irrelevant in terms of the decision Beane had to make when Kincaid was there at pick 25.

Yeah, I was just saying I don't know if they did or didn't. But I am with you and think JSN probably had a first round grade too and then one of (or both) Flowers and Johnston did not given Beane said he didn't have a first round grade on all of them.

Yeah I think you are right on that Honestly, I thought both Mayer and Kincaid would go before our pick, so was surprised to see Mayer fall to the 2nd too. I even thought Mayer might go ahead of Kincaid just because he is more of a complete TE where Kincaid was more of a weapon. So figured a TE needy team might go Mayer first.

I don't know what he thinks the point of the poll was, he is just salty cuz I rolled my eyes at one of his posts yesterday. But for the record, in this poll I voted do the same and take Kincaid and only give up a 4th

I don't know if it was the only one, but I do know it was the one he had already agreed to and was in place contingent the fate of Kincaid at that point (since Addison was gone). I agree, I am much happier taking Kincaid and getting Allen the help than moving that far back. Beane did a great job, love that he was aggressive to get his 1B guy and it only cost us a 4th and think it worked out pretty good for us.

Yeah like I said, not all of this was inside info and said some of this is already out publicly. I was more filling in the gaps was some further details. Mainly because I love the full story here. I love knowing Beane was all in on getting Allen a big time weapon, and he was aggressive and pivoting on the fly like we know he likes to do. He had all his bases covered...tried to get his guy...missed...worked out a contingency trade down to get us more ammo...another guy fell...and pounced and moved up. I just find the full details interesting and love how Beane operates.

Agreed...at least we know the front office was dead focused on getting Allen help and they went after the best 2 guys to probably do that in the draft in terms of being a target for Allen. Then adding O'Cyrus next to get him some more protection help was the icing on the cake.

It doesn't have to be fact though, when you are sitting there and you believe they will take him at 26, then moving up to insure you get him is a good move. Bills clearly thought they could take him and again, was told someone else called the Jags for the pick with a similar offer. I am guessing Cincy, and I would think Kincaid could have also been the reason. Correct, no one will ever no for sure, but that is why you make the move to prevent it from happening because you don't know if it will or not.

JSN is a good question, he was gone already at this point, so not sure if he had a first round grade too or not given Beane said he didn't have one all of the guys who went in the first. And if he did, I wonder who was higher, him or Kincaid. My guess is that it probably went Addison - Kincaid - JSN as everything points to them loving Kincaid almost as much as they loved Addison.

You read it wrong...I didn't say he didn't have a 1st round grade on "any" WR, I said he didn't have one on all 4.. Meaning had some of the other WRs (outside of Addison) had been on the board, Kincaid still would have bene the pick. The presumption is that more picks would have been involved to make it balance, but those were the meaty picks mentioned.

Lol, not the case at all, but ok

What an exciting first 2 days of the draft, none more exciting than the first round! Well here is how the first round went down for the Bills, some of this has come out publicly since our pick and some of this is inside info I have confirmed. I don't often share inside info on here, but when I have as you know it's been always been correct, and I have a little here to share now as well. Jordan Addison was their first and primary target in which they tried at least twice to trade up for him. He was their highest graded WR in the draft. I have a source that confirms to me that one of the teams were the Chargers but were rebuffed as they were all in on Quentin Johnston. I don't know who the other team(s) was, but it was presumably after the Chargers because they said we "first tried to get him at the Chargers pick". Supposedly Bills did not have a first round grade on all of the WR's that went before our pick, and Addison was definitely the only one they tried to trade up for. So not clear if Addison was the only first round grade or not, but they definitely didn't have one on all 4 guys. The only remaining player on the board after Addison went with a first round grade on Beanes board was Kincaid. This is not inside info, Beane directly stated that. From what I was told, the Jags had another team call with a similar offer for their pick but ours was slightly better. (Maybe Cincy for Kincaid?) I would guess it was Cincy, not sure if it was for Kincaid or just to make sure they got Myles Murphy if they thought we might go EDGE with the top 4 WRs gone. The reason I would guess Cincy is because they would have to be close enough to be offering the same 4th round pick since it was "similar" compensation, but also be behind us where our pick was a slightly better value. Looking at the teams behind us, Cincy makes sense to me. Beane stated he had a trade down in place if Kincaid was gone. I also was told this was true and it was with the Titans where we sent 27 and got back 41 and their 3rd. Once Giants took a CB, Beane obviously pulled the trigger with the Jags to get Kincaid instead of the trade down. Nothing too ground breaking here, more just confirming what a lot of us suspected already or had already come out. Addison being their top target was pretty known given how many times they met with him. But it was interesting to see that we tried to get Addison though, makes me wonder if he was the only WR they had a first round grade on, or did they have on JSN too but just preferred Addison. What I love about Beane is that when he wasn't able to get Addison, he stayed aggressive in his pursuit for more weapons for Allen and pounced as soon as he had an opportunity to get one by not hesitating to jump the Cowboys to do it. I have no info on Hopkins, so don't ask

It is true, he had a trade back in place with the Titans who wanted Levis. But once Kincaid fell they decided to go get him.

I don’t know enough about him, but LB was our biggest question mark