Hapless Bills Fan

Ok I'm back. Again, this is my capture of my view on how I think Beane sees the run game and what he thinks he's done about it. So fundamentally, in terms of prioritizing resigning our own Beane put $11.54M cap $$ at re-upping Williams, Feliciano, and Boettger - which is basically last year's OL. The Ed Courage award and the "struggling to lift a 10 lb weight" and the stuff he said about Ford says to me that Beane may be giving them the "purple heart pass", but signing Boettger and $3M of additional FA in Lamp, Douglas, and Hart implies to me that Beane is hedging his bets and there's a shot across the bows "we will have holes in the run game, or else...." As far as TE, Hollister lost playing time to Dissly and Greg Olsen in 2020, but from what I saw he's a more capable run blocker than Knox last off-season. SI had this to say: My knock on Knox, from what I saw and in Cover1's breakdown, is that he's totally inconsistent. If it's clear to him who he's supposed to block and he has time to get set he can do OK, but if he's facing elite quickness or if there's some kind of read-and-react decision making involved "let's see, if the LB drops into coverage and the CB comes then I gotta block him", he's totally "lost in space". I hope he improves, but I think Hollister is a "shot across the bows" to Knox that he better shape up, or there WILL be an alternative who can both block and gain separation in the passing game. If Sweeney has learned anything during his year off, maybe two because I sure liked what I saw of him when he was on the field and his college tape. As far as the RBs, I think they were sent off with a laundry list of stuff to work on. My personal take is that Singletary lost focus last year - as we became a passing team and the run blocking struggled, I think he was "phoning it in" sometimes. He ran the world's worst go route in one game; it was notable in the Ravens game he had a hole and ran right into his blockers. Hopefully his offseason work that Ty Dunne wrote about indicates that he got the message. But just like the OLmen, I think Breida represents a bit of a "shot across the bows"; he was a capable back with the SF 49ers gaining 5.3 and 5.1 ypa, 58 and 48 ypg. Beane doesn't want to be left with no alternatives if his primary plan that our current backs will look better if the blocking is better does not pan out. The other part of signing Breida is as a 5th year guy who played for a Superbowl team, I think Beane is expecting some veteran leadership out of Breida to help keep the room focused even if they aren't getting much business as rushers sometimes. I would expect to see Beane watching the waiver wire and the cutout bin, as well. OK, so, it's not the "blow it all up and start over" sexy that some here would like to see, and I'm not intending to get all up in the "whoo, done more than Browns" or anything like that. I'm just pointing out that what Beane has done to try to ensure we have a run game next season may be a bit more than folks see.

There'll be peace when you are done

Good discussion! So if you follow the breadcrumbs Beane has dropped about being very unfair to blame the backs for the rungame, and if you buy in to some of the film breakdown analysis Cover1 did on the run game, the #1 problem with the rungame was blocking - OL, TE, and WR. I'm trying to break down how I think Beane sees it here and the moves that might make a difference (or might not). OL: The center and the tackles are the same, so presumably they weren't ID'd as the problem (or the problems ID'd with them were decided to be coachable) So this comes down to RG and LG. RG: Winters game 3-11, then Feliciano LG: Spain game 1-2, then Ford game 3-6, then Boettger games 7-10, then Feliciano Game 11, then Boettger I think Beane has a 3 pronged approach: 1) improved play by last year's injury-hampered intended starters 2) improved play by developmental guys 3) replacement by 2nd tier guards picked up good run blocking teams Either Ford and Feliciano were hampered by off season rehab/in season injuries that they didn't represent their best selves OR Boettger at LG and Devey at RG can take a step OR Lamp (off the Chargers) and Jamil Douglas (off the Titans) I put them in order of possible solutions but I'd say off hand Douglas is seen as ahead of Devey if Feliciano doesn't step it up. I'm not quite sure that's it. I think we ran when we needed to at times - all game against NE, against the Chargers, against the Steelers to put the game away. BUT, we could not run against the best run defenses, that's for reals. More later.

Are they? I actually hunted and couldn't find a measurement. In pictures, they actually look kinda small. Tyler Lockett, who doesn't body-catch and would be regarded as a top slot by most, is listed as 8 3/8" hands. McKenzie, who I also haven't seen body-catch but maybe I'm missing something? is 8 3/4" I don't think hand size is the defining issue. Haha, yes, now you're honing in on it. I thought Zierlein nailed it pretty well: He's got that uncoachable attribute - speed. And I think he's actually got reasonable ball-tracking chops from what I saw. But when some on here (don't mean you) wondered why we didn't see McKenzie in games more, "release off the line and route running chops" was the correct answer. McKenzie is not in immediate roster jeopardy from this guy because, to his credit, Isaiah's route running is starting to come on and he's starting to be able to release and run routes. Unless this Stevenson guy has been off at Receiver Factory with Diggs learning how to strip-search NFL QBs, he's got a ways to go.

"Looking like" is the key word. Last year, it shouldn't even be a question that the Browns secondary was not as good as the Bills. There's also not a question at all that the Browns went out and made FA acquisitions and draft choices that on paper, should entirely overhall and improve their secondary! But that's really what this thread seems to be about - using "winning the offseason" as a criterion to decide who is gonna win the season. As Bills fans, we've been there done that and bought the T-shirt. Remember when the Bills had the absolute best DL in the NFL - on paper? 2012, if you don't. Mario Williams. Woooo! If y'all didn't get over this "better on paper" thing then, Why didn't ya? Just as KC remains the team to beat in the AFC until proven otherwise (despite completely overhauling their OL and losing significant starters on D), the Bills IMO remain the #2 seed until proven otherwise. They played a harder schedule than the Browns. They didn't have the stout D they wanted, but they had a better D than the Browns last season, even without looking at improvement towards the end of the season. The Browns took a lot of steps to shore up their weaknesses - maybe flashier steps than the Bills. Good for them! Here's the point: they needed to do so. Beane and McDermott didn't do much flashy, but IMHO they honed in on what they decided were the Bills biggest weaknesses (DL and OL) and added judiciously elsewhere with bargain players they could afford. They quietly took what steps they could to bolster the roster. Will the Bills wind up with an improved OL and improved pressure from the DL? Tune in during the season. Sure, if the Browns moves all pan out while the Bills tread water, the Browns could wind up being a better team. But if at least some of the Bills moves pan out and we wind up with better pressure from the DL and a more solid, reliable running game due to adding a COP back and improved run blocking, then we've kept up in the arms race (or even moved ahead) Time will tell.

The Bucs have a QB and an offensive coordinator that are both fully committed to "take what the defense is giving you". Part of the Bills taking their next step is Allen learning to do that before halftime.

One of them asked basically how did you choose, what are your criteria? And basically they said man CB, bump-n-run. The Bills do play zone, primarily

Quick, what's Cole Beasley's hand size? How about Tyler Lockett? Isaiah McKenzie? Now no one would deny that the 10" hands at the end of Deandre Hopkins long arms are a competitive advantage. But as Joe Burrow said: Proclaiming a guy is "never becoming a full time slot" before he's even shown up in training camp on the strength of a body part measurement is just silly. Pssst: Maybe he body catches because he was never coached up to use those 8.5" hands correctly, and he can learn with good coaching.

Pretty good assessment of the impact the Bills draft choices have on the roster: https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/winners-and-losers-on-the-bills-roster-after-the-nfl-draft/article_bdd697dc-acf3-11eb-9909-7fb349df59ed.html Winners: Levi Wallace and Dane Jackson Devin Singletary and Zach Moss Dawson Knox Harrison Phillips (NT) Morse and Feliciano Losers: Mario Addison, DEs, and Zimmer Bobby Hart, Forrest Lamp and Jamil Douglas Josh Thomas (backup safety, with drafting of Damar Hamlin) - but the Bills did lose backup safety Dean Marlowe and did not replace him in FA) Isaiah McKenzie (because of drafting Marquez Stevenson) Thoughts? At TE, Gaughan says "Dawson Knox" but seems to me Jacob Hollister, Reggie Gilliam, Tommy Sweeney and Nate Becker should be included there. Knox is the head of the current depth chart, and a rookie was always going to come into the season behind him, but the guys at the back of the roster could get pushed off. At Center/Guard, Gaughan says only "veteran depth" behind them - but I think the Bills really like Bates and Boettger. I don't think their positions changed that much) At OT, yes, there's a logjam and I agree Hart is likely to be gone with the drafting of Spencer Brown. But I'm puzzled by putting Lamp and Douglas in there, but not mentioning Jordan Devey. Drafting 2 OTs doesn't necessarily move a guard off the spot? Gaughan gets fixated on cutting certain guys while failing to mention others. He seems to have moved on from Morse to Addison. But he doesn't mention Hughes. I think in general, the logjam at WR deserves mention and not just singling out McKenzie. The top guys Diggs, Sanders, Beasley, and Davis are probably fixed. But we signed Brandon Powell, presumably to compete at KR/PR with McKenzie. McKenzie has a leg-up in that he's got a role on offense. How does Isaiah Hodgins, last year's sixth round pick, fit in there? And do any of the guys we tendered like Jake Kumerow, Duke Williams, or Josh Allen buddy Tanner Gentry have a shot?

So our local sport writers seem...lukewarm at best https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/news-writers-grade-how-the-bills-fared-in-nfl-draft/article_85239004-ab57-11eb-87aa-e35aad2463b3.html Vic Carruci B- Jay Skurski C+ Mark Gaughan C Jason Wolf B Paraphrasing: The media: "Bills should draft BPA! Teams make bad choices by reaching for need!" Also the media: "But...but...but...look at the needs the Bills just ignored in their draft!" I'm reminded of what Beane said about the 2018 draft, that he walked into the press room and "Everyone was looking at me like I'd done something wrong!" and he said "I promise, you're going to love him!" Just like 2018, Beane has a lot of people looking at him as though he's done something wrong.

Yeah, No.

I'll play. I thought that Ryan Fitzpatrick could be our franchise QB. All he needed was just a 2 more completions a game!! And I argued this POV quite vigorously! I held that last opinion, but to do me credit it was after a guy at a party talked him up to me. Since said guy has serious football chops (for values of serious football chops = bust in Canton) I figured he knew better. I changed my screen name from "Hopeful" after the 2nd game that year.

We need at least two defensive ends. There's only one Epenesa.

With regard to Jon, keep in mind there's a reason why his team voted him the "Ed Block Courage" award. He was absolutely not playing well at times last season, but I think he was playing more hurt than they wanted anyone to know. There was an article about him in "Muscle and Fitness" magazine with some jaw dropping tidbits: Imagine facing off against fully healthy defensive linemen when you're a few weeks away from struggling to pick up a 10 pound dumbell with one arm. You could tell in some of Feliciano's post-game media availabilities that he was playing doped up as well (there's something in the eyes and the facial expression), which ***** with the reaction times. But, he played how he played, and that's part of the reason why the Bills signed Lamp and Douglas as "backup plans" at guard should Feliciano not return to form.

Your starting lineup aligns with how I see the Bills having it penciled in as we approach camp. It's not absolute - "everything is earned", but if you look at the allocation of Bills cap dollars: -Boettger just signed his RFA tender for $2.13M -Lamp signed a contract for vet minimum, $990k with $137k signing bonus (that may be a veteran salary benefit contract that only counts $850M against the cap) I would say Lamp will get a chance to compete with Boettger for a slot on the roster, but Boettger is probably ahead of Lamp on the depth chart right now. I would also say that Bates is ahead of Doyle right now, especially as he can play anywhere on the line. Doyle's draft profile can be summarized as "has talent, needs work". If they don't feel they can slide Doyle onto the PS (though they probably can), expect him to experience a traumatic hangnail requiring prolonged rehab at the end of camp and go on IR. Also: don't sleep on Jamil Douglas competing at guard. Feliciano was obviously playing hurt and hampered last season, but his run blocking was not up to par and he was getting beaten like a drum in pass protection at times. Douglas was signed as a shot across the bow saying "we WILL have competent run blocking this year and either you or your replacement will provide it". Douglas was signed as a backup with some starts on a tip-top run blocking team.

Right, and now that we know there was a late-flagged medical issue with J-OK that may have made the Bills nervous in this abnormal year, makes sense. That leaves Barmore, who I think could legitimately be viewed as at least an equivalent player depending upon how scouts weight experience, athleticism, and potential. There, I have to trust the Bills scouts to have done the "deep dive" into the film and say "how much of Barmore's production was due to the strong cast around him?" and other details we don't have access to. The other factor there is I do think Beane goes for a need-modified BPA, and if he saw them as close, he might feel our needs were stronger at DE - especially if any interviews and background they conducted may have indicated that Barmore might not be happy at 1T despite being profiled as a fit.

Dude, when you have this diversity of posters telling you you're mistaken, your foot is truly in your mouth, and it's time to quit before you're nibbling so far up your own leg that you're busted for public indecency: Been pointed out elsewhere that the Browns had all or most of their WR on the Covid list. Believe they may have had limited facility access that week, as well, so limited opportunities for Mayfield to get in sync with the WR who remained. Really can't pin that loss on the Browns or Stefanski. The Jests basically pinned their ears back and smothered the run and said "I Dare You" on the passing.

Heh. McKenzie's draft profile: https://www.nfl.com/prospects/isaiah-mckenzie/32004d43-4b25-0948-8027-d3dafaef3cae I would say that McKenzie is one of those guys who basically was able to rely on his athleticism in college and never had to focus on polishing his abilities to fake DBs out of their cleats the way Diggs can, and probably never had a lot of coaching attention helping him develop. The interesting thing about McKenzie is that to my eyes, he is learning to be a better receiver - he got a TON better last season as a WR and it showed in how the Bills used him. Yes, he was still running those Jet sweeps and reverses, but he was actually on the field running routes and succeeding with them at times. Coaching matters. The quality of the other WR you're training with matters. As evidence, I offer you Week 17 of last season when he ran enough routes to be charted: https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/charts/player/season/isaiah-mckenzie/MCK250948/2020/17/route Just looking at the chart, you can see the difference. Compare to say, Week 15 in 2018. He's running actual routes now, and while he still has work to do, he's running them capably. In fact looking at a couple of those, you could see the DB getting toasted. The question is, will he continue to develop or has he reached a plateau? McKenzie's Instagram feed is chock full of shots of him working out hard, and his athleticism is just off the charts. He had one of him doing 48" box jumps then like 36" box jumps - one legged and holding a medicine ball. He's only 68" tall. On and on, he's just a Dawg for training. Now, a guy's insta feed doesn't necessarily show a good picture of what he's doing, but in contrast, Diggs insta feed is full of him working on those sudden cuts and changes of direction - basically honing the muscle memories and skills he uses to de-cleat professional NFL athletes on a regular basis. It makes me wish McKenzie would go train at the same place Diggs uses, which is "Receiver Factory". Motto: "Won't get you Stronger, won't get you Faster, Will get you Open". (Of course Diggs works on the Stronger and Faster parts too). Unfortunately for McKenzie, he's apparently a big-ass trash talker ("small man syndrome", Addison said) and I think he may put some people's back up a bit where they're still helpful, but a little bit less inclined to take him under their wing.

Those are all top players. I think it's a point that if you look at the way Zierlein grades for NFL.com, J-OK graded higher, but we now know there was a medical concern which pushed him down almost a round. The rest are pretty close together - within 0.2. That means it's entirely plausible that while you didn't think he was BPA, the Bills talent evaluators did.

Agreed. McDermott's mouth said "we have full confidence in Isaiah McKenzie to take over for Cole" but when you play a guy with an actual broken leg in 3 playoff games over his backup, well, your actions speak loudly. My point was I think they view Diggs and Sanders as more interchangeable than you might think, and I think they view having Sanders and Cole on the field together as a way to free Diggs to play deeper....but you're absolutely right that having a backup plan for Beasley's route-running vocabulary played into it.

I think the problem with Brown is that physical press man coverage has always been able to neutralize him to some extent. Also, he's a good route-running technician, but I don't remember watching a Brown highlight where I was like "Smoke!!!! Have Mercy, that guy's got a family!" which you can definitely find on Sanders and on Diggs without too much trouble. In addition to injury concerns, the plays where Brown was thrown the opportunity to swing the game (maybe not a perfect pass but a catchable one) and failed to put it away, were mounting up.

Ah. So. I think the Bills do want to take the top off the defense (more in a minute). But I don't think they view Sanders potentially redundant skillset to Cole as redundant in their scheme. Here's what I saw, I could be wrong. In games where we were struggling against a pretty strong pass rush or pressure (Pittsburgh, for example), we didn't have time for the deeper routes Diggs was running to open up. Pitts. was doing a good job of bracketing Beasley and taking him away on the intermediate/deep routes. So, what we did was rearrange the route tree and put Diggs on that shorter quicker stuff. They couldn't take away both Beasley and Diggs, and Diggs slaughtered them in the 2nd half of the Pittsburgh game, including YAC (66 yds AC, roughly half his yardage totals). What I think the Bills wanted is a 2nd guy who's just as hard to cover as Beasley, to free up Diggs to run those intermediate to deep routes. I think the Bills wanted a sure bet they could get their hands on. They looked at the FAs and the draft reports and decided that without selling out their draft picks, their surest path to getting that guy was to sign Sanders. Where some here differ from the Bills is that it's sometimes asserted that he doesn't have true burner speed because of his 4.46 40-time. But top speedsters in the NFL these days are clocked (by GPS in their uniforms) running at top speeds of 21.7-23 mph. I can't find a list of what he hits on the football field, but I can tell you Diggs has posted videos of himself hitting 22.6, 22.8. 23 (!) mph doing speed training off season. He's faster than people think. Which brings me back to the "top off the defense". To my eyes, the problem with Brown as a deep threat was that he could be neutralized by good enough press man and "sticky" coverage, especially after he maybe struggled this season with injuries. You mention we need an X, I imagine you know this but as one breakdown puts it "in most formations, the X receiver is tethered to the line of scrimmage. He cannot go in motion, so the cornerback can jam him at the line. So, your X receiver, he .... better have the quickness to get away from the corner, and he better be good coming off a press." It's not a clear thing IMO that these guys in the 3rd round were going to translate on that immediately at the NFL level. To be a speed guy at the NFL level, you got to be able to separate, too.

Good post, but just to point out...."no starters" and your first para are not contradictory. I believe you're right that we'll see Rousseau and Basham on the field this season if they "get" the defense...but they won't be the starters. People are nuts on podcasts and stuff. You called it...."why did they draft those small school guys because small school DI guys....no wait, they should have drafted this other smaller school DIII guy!" We'll see about the kid from Pitt ..... replacing Dean Marlowe as our backup safety is one of our gaps. But "a lot"? Poyer and Hyde have been (knock wood) quite durable. Where do you see him playing a lot?

But here's the thing....you mentioned Moore because you think "we didn’t add any playmakers that are going make significant game changing plays- something we really could have used on both sides of the ball". But in order to allow him to make that difference, you would have to pull time from guys who actually DID make significant game changing plays for the Bills last year - Beasley and Davis. WR, especially rookies, seldom make "game changing plays" when sprinkled in. Very soon the lineup starts telegraphing, as in 2019 when teams saw McKenzie and said "there's that Jet Sweep or Reverse again!". It lost effectiveness until McKenzie developed the ability (and timing/same page thinking with Josh) to broaden his route vocabulary. How do you know that Rousseau isn't going to be sprinkled in at certain times to get his feet wet and try to create big plays, and get more playing time the more he proves himself? I think what your argument comes down to is the Bills didn't draft the guy you wanted, and you don't like the guy they did draft. But the truth is we have a lot of depth at WR ahead of Moore so he likely wouldn't have made a huge immediate contribution, and we have starters ahead of Rousseau. Both would have had limited impact, and both would have had to be sprinkled in and earn playing time. But last year, our receiving corps was overall one of the best in the league, even with Brown missing significant time and not himself when active. Our pass rush and ability to pressure the QB, OTOH, was NOT.

The OP could be correct about his order of teams, the OP could be incorrect about his order of teams, but his analysis of the Chiefs and of the Bills off season moves was, IMO, really shallow and missed a lot of points (Chiefs I discussed above). He's doubling down on it, though, so whatever. The major point is the Chiefs remain the team to beat in the AFC until proven otherwise. And the Bills made a strong case for being their biggest threat. If Allen shows his improvement was no fluke, IMO we remain that (biggest threat) until proven otherwise. The Browns had a worse defense and played a weaker schedule last season. It's not a fluke that the Bills had a better record last season. They're a legit contender and on paper, they made moves to significantly improve themselves. We'll see if they come to fruition. So did the Bills, BTW. The moves aren't sexy, but evidently the outcome of the honest assessment they did was that our problems were largely on the offensive and defensive lines. We lacked the cap $$ to compete successfully for some splashy FA signings, so Beane's approach was to add competition/alternatives and strive for improvement that way. It's not sexy but it's worked before.