JESSEFEFFER

I don't mind them at all. I was expecting an X-WR candidate too, especailly that first pick in the 3rd. They are often funny and have interesting things to say which I do not need to agree with all of the time to find entertaining. It's basically harmless guy talk which is a nice break from all the stuff that is more important but also more distressing and is typically featured on cable news, 24/7.

No one can talk that much and not say something ridiculous every now and then, so I don't hold those relatively few things against him. In this case, he said similar stuff about Allen and the Bills on a WGR segment. There was a thread here about it and someone said that it was an opninion tailored to the Buffalo market. It clearly was and is not. There were games where Josh was the best player on the field and you would need to have watched the games to 1) realize that and 2) think that he can continue to elevate his game as the team around him improves.

I think there were 3 like that in the last game and two were caught, one for a TD by Jones. The DB was jumping the slant and Zay came to a complete stop, made the catch and pivoted up the sideline for the TD. It looked planned because it would be almost impossible to stop that quickly and still be there to catch the ball. The post game presser seemed to say it was not the plan. It worked so well maybe they should put that in the offense as a way to beat a DB trying to jump the slant route.

Assuming none of them is asked to play: Fitz the mentor...... the wise voice in the ear of the starter. A wise counsel to the young QB trying to learn the ropes of being a team leader under a media microscope. Barkley is the sidekick. Like Tonto or Robin, he is in the fight but knows his place, burries his ego and is loyal to the cause. That was Frank Reich. Tyrod seems so understated and his personality is veiled. His effect in the room would be more subtle. I doubt he need do much for Rivers and what good he did for Mayfield is not obvious to me. Now, when you need them to start a game or, to the extreme, finish a season and take it to the post season ala Foles, I have no idea but I think your team is screwed with any of them as the starter.

Very strange draft year for WR. Lots of the bigger players fell and the smaller guys pushed up. If Hakeem Butler fell to the 4th, and DK to the end of the 2nd, then AJ not getting drafted at all doesn't seem like an outlier. He showed plenty of RAC ability so the separation thing I do not buy. If anything, I think its that he was lacking any elite trait. He is sort of the six iron in your golf bag. I can see him making their roster. PFF had him as the highest graded returning WR but he earned the grade against a MAC schedule. Chris Trapasso wrote the CBS piece and I got the impression that he was just throwing the local players' names out there at the start of the season as more of a community service, showing some love to guys who otherwise were to be overlooked.

Ok, these megathreads are tough to fully digest but I was on record as saying that: 1) The Bills would/should take a RB in the 3rd round if there was a particular guy they liked 2) Hoping it would be David Montgomery because even though he lacked elite speed, he was an all-around back that could grind out yards and sustain offense. Since the Bears traded up to 74 and got the one I wanted right in front of the Bills' pick, my team had to "settle" for a slower, smaller less athletic back from a lesser conference. Now I have to reserve judgement until I actually can see him play against NFL speed defense. Two of the more important traits of a runner are balance and vision and you don't assess those with a stop watch or tape measure.

Tyree is talented enough to run for 45 yards with his team trailing and needing a score but then lack enough awareness and fumble at the 3. There were some tough losses that UB took where he was capable of doing more to help but he seemed to wilt under the pressure. Some athletes come alive when challenged. His tools are rare enough that he still should have been taken in the draft, imo. Teams took lesser QBs in this draft. Tyree had a good Senior Bowl, Combine and Pro Day. Maybe Jordan Palmer helped him some. Buffalo716 nailed some of his flaws but it's not like all the QBs taken don't have them too.

Oddly, looks like that chart does not include the last game against Miami as it is short 3 TD passes and 1 Int. Also, since this is only passer rating, it comes with the flaws of ignoring every other play he made that did not include the ball coming out.

From the information I found, the creator of this metric claims that these scores show the highest correlation to TE success. OJ Howard................. 9.8 Jimmy Graham.......... 9.6 George Kittle.............. 9.5 Travis Kelce................ 9.3 Gronk.......................... 9.3 Greg Olsen.................. 9.5 I have not watched Irv Smith highlights, but I wonder if the buzz around him is all Alabama, SEC and his NFL bloodlines. Otherwise, I'd rather pass on him and take Oliver, Warring or Knox in the 3rd or later.

The top of the TE group down to Irv Smith, Jr. Noah Fant Iowa 2019COMBINE 9.89 Foster Moreau Louisiana State 2019COMBINE 9.48 Kahale Warring San Diego State 2019COMBINE 9.41 Dawson Knox Mississippi 2019COMBINE 9.26 T.J. Hockenson Iowa 2019COMBINE 9.21 Drew Sample Washington 2019COMBINE 9.02 Andrew Beck Texas 8.82 Jackson Harris Georgia 8.81 Alize Mack Notre Dame 2019COMBINE 8.56 Kano Dillon Oregon 8.43 Stephen Carlson Princeton 8.26 Josh Oliver San Jose State 2019COMBINE 8.21 Austin Applebee Southern California UNCONFIRMED 7.67 Isaiah Searight Fordham 7.33 Justin Johnson Mississippi State 7.12 Donald Parham Stetson 6.85 MikQuan Deane Western Kentucky 6.43 Chris Myarick Temple 5.97 C.J. Conrad Kentucky COMBINE| heart condition 5.97 Tommy Sweeney Boston College 2019COMBINE 5.91 Trevon Wesco West Virginia 2019COMBINE 5.89 Daniel Helm Duke 2019COMBINE 5.75 Caleb Wilson UCLA 2019COMBINE 5.7 Kendall Blanton Missouri 2019COMBINE 5.28 Jace Sternberger Texas A&M 2019COMBINE 5.25 Dax Raymond Utah State 2019COMBINE 5.21 Matt Sokol Michigan State 4.86 Irv Smith Jr. Alabama 2019COMBINE 4.82

He has the top RAS of the WR group which screams elite. I wonder what held him back at ND.

Over/under on WR taken this round is pretty big. Maybe 7.5? They will be popular this round so the Bills should take one if they have a strong preference but there are nice, athletic big recievers available later like Hurd and Boykin. Ok with WR, OT or DE. TE in the 3rd or 4th round as I do not favor Irv Smith who is small and relatively unathletic. My impression was that an edge defender needed to be taken in the top 50 if he were to be a candidate for significant playing time, that's Ferguson and Winovich, I suppose.

The top of the DT group for reference: Dexter Lawrence Clemson 2019COMBINE 9.87 Ed Oliver Houston 2019COMBINE 9.87 Quinnen Williams Alabama 2019COMBINE 9.85 Renell Wren Arizona State 2019COMBINE 9.74 Jerry Tillery Notre Dame 2019COMBINE 9.72 Ray Smith Boston College 9.67 Alec Heldreth Clarion 9.57 Jalen Dalton North Carolina 9.09 Michael Dogbe Temple 9.03 Trysten Hill Central Florida 2019COMBINE 8.99 Jonathan Bonner Notre Dame 8.76 Khalen Saunders Western Illinois 2019COMBINE 8.56 Christian Wilkins Clemson 2019COMBINE 8.55

It is. I wonder what held him back at ND that is tied in to not being one of the elite of this draft. Many Bills related mock drafts have taken him quite late and if he's there in the 5th it seems like that's the type of shot you take.

David Montgomery. Credited with over 100 broken tackles last year and only 3 fumbles in almost 700 career touches. I liked James Conner two years ago and Robb Riddick is an all time favorite of mine. I want guys that grind out tough yards and help sustain offense with all around play. I do not favor dancers that look for daylight that never comes. Kahale Warring is an improving, athletic TE prospect that has an interesting back story and fits in the 3rd round. The Draft Network's Ledyard wrote: "Warring has the quickness and speed of a big wide receiver, but the length of a tight end and the biceps of a greek god. His routes and releases are already surprisingly polished, and while he can improve a bit as a blocker and continue to sharpen his ball skills, the work ethic and football character attributed to him at San Diego State bodes well for him reaching his high ceiling. Time this man gets the love he deserves as a top 100 prospect" Any player with a local connection. The BN had a story on them recently. The UB guys and those that played their high scholl ball here are interesting to me. I will follow all of them as they take their best shot at having an NFL career. Punter Mich Wishnowsky of Utah. Others mentioned him so I looked at his draft profile. Very atheltic, former Aussie Rules player, 3X Ray Guy finalist and apparently has some good directional kicking skills. I'd like the Bills to have a reliable punter that can handle the job without putting the team in bad situations with mishit or poorly placed punts. His athleticism may flash the way Moorman's did. Mitch Wishnowsky I'd bet he'd be a fun guy to have on the roster too.

Butler and Hurd are nice. Strange that the draft grades on them are all over the place but they look to be both ahtletically and physically what the Bills WR corp lacks. Oh, and that comment about the basketball team makes sense. I hadn't heard that before but it seems totally compatible with Beane's public comments about what types of WRs he wants on his roster.

My prefernce is that the Bills maneuver enough to get 5 picks in the top 100 and then take some combination of DE, DT, OT, WR, TE and RB with those 5. After all those veteran free agent signings, the roster needs an infusion of young talent that can realistically push some of those FA off the roster. Drafting a bunch of players destined for the practice squad at best does not do much to upgrade the roster. Trading up does nothing to help make that happen.

I am new to this metric and was seeking opinions on how much insight it actually provides. There is probably some correlation between what it measures and what the "ceiling" might be for any player. It does give some rather interesting scores and relative to the positional peer groups it must mean something. Here is the link to the site which I do as an attempt to conform to rules about using other people's data: RAS Scores This format can't be sorted which is very inconvenient so I copied it to an Excel file which can be sorted. I have seen other lists which has historical scores going back fifteen or twenty years which is would be a nice way of trying to look for a correlation. 1) Highest RAS is punter Mitch Wishnowsky with a 10! If you wanted to run a fake punt he might be the man. Austrailian Rules football says hello. I'd like the Bills to fix their punting for a decade and he'd be worth a late round pick to me just to add a 3rd option to the competiton. 2) Highest QB score is...............Tyree Jackson. 3) Surprisingsly poor scores for Irv Smith, Jr who is at 4.82 and Jace Sternberger at 5.25. Most of the other top guys are much higher. FYI, Stephen Carlson from Princeton (JHS alumnus) is an 8.26 whiich is why I was even looking to find this data as I was curious how he stacked up. 4) I would assume that it would be tough for a player to really out perform this score as most ingame matchups would really favor elite athleticism . Certainly QB and all it's unmeasurable but necessary traits and maybe RB (doesn't measure contact balance or vision) are likely exceptions. 5) Anyways it does provide something extra to discuss in terms of whom the Bills might be considering and whom they actually do select. 6) Amongst the RB class, Miles Sanders is a standout but his fumbling is a problem, imo. RAS 2019 NFL.xlsx

With the way Nate played in the preseason, starting Josh would have been a huge mistake, imo. When Josh struggled and they lost games, and we all knew that would happen, every veteran on the team would have thought/said "Why not Nate, he looked better, was the best of the 3 in preseason and he won the job." You do not want the veterans on the team to reject the rookie as the starter. As it was, after Baltimore, no one would be lobbying for Peterman to play.

I like the idea of Montez Sweat but he may not be up to the job. Besides the heart issue and the Michigan State issue (Weed and a bicycle?) is the way he makes sacks. They are pretty soft and not likely to separate the ball. He really needs to arrive at the QB with the intent of getting the ball out like Khalil Mack and Josh Allen who forced 11 fumbles at Kentucky. Montez forced only one at Mississippi State. This could be drill and coaching, but learning to use an off hand chop at the ball when approaching the tackle would be a start.

I skimmed through and did not see an answer to this. 1) No vetran QB on the roster to start the season. A mistake fixed by signing Barkley and Anderson. 2) Not retooling OL after departures of Wood, Igcognito and Glenn. I'd argue this was attempted but was done so on the cheap due to dead cap constraints. 3) Having big targets Benjamin and Holmes as WR1 and WR3 to start the season. I'd argue that they were not the wrong type of receiver to have, just that they were not good enough at it. The overall point is that Beane has been very agressive at fixing these roster mistakes and that it may continue to be adressed early in the draft, hence Metcalf/Williams talk.

No way that Whaley and his staff were going to call the shot on the Bills' next attempt at a franchise QB. Trading down and getting more ammo for the 2018 draft was all about deferring the QB choice to the next GM. That is typically a selling point to the next GM hire. The pool of prospective GMs that would be ok with not being able to select the HC nor the QB would be tiny. Whaley was a lameduck, Beane was lined up and the QB choice was deferred. Makes 100% sense to me.

The answer to the question is yes, they can wait. But, if there is a guy they really like as an all around, do it all kind of player they might need to take him in the 3rd from what I have seen in most rankings. I have seen David Miontgomery, the RB I favor, anywhere between 40 and 90 on most of the bigboards I have seen by the semiprofessional NFL Draft aficionados. I think RB is a pretty big need for 2019 and especially starting in 2020. I hope they are serious about getting someone they think can be special.

I think the 2020 roster needs 2 new RBs so get them on the roster this year. Maybe Love gets stashed on IR and shows up in 2020 ready to go and is had pretty cheaply on day 3. I really like Montgomery's style. The OP mentioned a break-a-way threat. I want a break-a-tackle threat that has all-around ability and can move the chains. More James Conner than LeSean McCoy. In a baseball analogy, I see the running game as being the tablesetter and the passing game being the homerun hitters. A running game that moves the chains gives the team more chances for other guys to make big plays. PFF said Montgomery set some kind of record with 100+ broken tackles and that's good enough for me. That's some tough running. Only 3 fumbles in nearly 700 touches is pretty dependable too.

I read your Allen report just to see how it stacked up with what we witnessed in his first year. I think you nailed it so it earns you some credibility on the 2019 guys and it's not like your evaluations look anything like the others I've seen.