Hapless Bills Fan

First part of the tweet That's a bit misleading as it might imply he works for the NFL. Kollman is a film analyst who runs a youtube channel called 'The Film Room" which he monetizes with promotional deals. Sort of like a league-wide Cover1. His stuff is pretty good. Except that officially, McKenzie didn't "test the market" as he was re-signed before the start of FA both years. Stevenson offers cheaper return options 😂

I think there may not be reps in practice to train 2 holders. I believe it used to be in fashion to have the BU QB hold, for just the advantage you mention of needing to defend against the fake. I know in Dallas, Romo used to be the FG holder. Then when he was the starting QB, there was an incident where he didn't get the ball set properly, the Cowboys missed a FG and lost in the playoffs. He never held again. (This was all on A Football Life) I think that and similar instances are why backup QB as Holder has gone out of fashion. It's all great while the backup is warming the bench, but if he plays, then it's an issue both in practice and potentially if he's gassed or shaken up in the game and then needs to go hold. Since the NFL is cyclical and copycat, perhaps it will come back in fashion.

I will add, “lost a step” would only be determined in season, unless he just can’t get in the playbook

You mean....McDermott's implication that there was a reasonable play called and a failure of execution on the part of one or more players....might be correct? And that McDermott not wanting to throw a player or players under the bus publically, might actually be McDermott being a stand up guy and not a little weasel who doesn't own his own mistakes? 😱 I didn't here it that way. The players get pretty tight with each other during the season, I think he just meant that they were hurting for each other most.

Eh. It's the beginning of the end, but it's not the end yet. Roethlisberger said pretty much the same about Mason Rudolph and IIRC Aaron Rodgers said stuff that amounted to the same thing about Love. Roethlisberger had an all-pro kind a year in 2018 - >5000 yds passing, 67% completions, 34 TD and 5 INT, 7.6 ypa, only 24 sacks. James Conner had a pro-bowl rushing year. Smith-Schuster and AB both had >1200 receiving yards. Unfortunately the #16 D let them down and they went 9-6-1 and missed the playoffs - showing, IMO, that one does need a decent defense to allow a great QB to win championships.

I believe I gave a reasonable answer. You can disagree with that assessment. You're the one who has a sweeping philosophical disagreement with the draft day decisions, overall strategy, and roster management of the Bills FO.

Thanks! Appreciate it! Will read carefully.

1) Motor has become an excellent pass protector. Maybe Cook will get there, but for now he's gonna have a big adjustment there. 2) Motor was 15th in the league for YPC this season, with 4.6 - behind a poor run blocking OL that saw him tackled in the backfield a fair amount. Cook says he can do it all, but he'll have to prove he can be productive running between the tackles.

The point is: 1) no one is 29. We are not comparing 29 and 31. We are comparing 30 and 31 - 1 year different 2) the AAV on a contract signed 2-3 years ago is not appropriately comparable to a contract signed today 3) Poyer is not making $9M this year, he is making close to $11M 4) we have no clue about the details of Mathieu's contract, which is almost certain not to be a "flat 11M 3 years" Over and out.

I don't think that's a good take. They have a QB on a rookie deal. He performed well even behind a sieve OL. They made 3 significant FA moves on OL and arguably upgraded at TE as well. I think it's arguable they improved.

Some merit to that POV I mean, one could say that about last year's Bills - more worried about "running it back" than getting better, and we did get our asses kicked too much. But we still had a chance to get to the Superbowl at the end of the day.

When I look at the contract, I see it as a 3 year, $41.3M contract - 3 year, 33.5M with $7.8M dead cap. His picks dropped off, but he had 113 tackles and 7 PD last year. Not quite a disaster. If he has a similar year in 2022, I think they keep him through 2023. Yeah, it was quite the contract for a dude who was 32 the season he signed it, and a definite outlier among top safety contracts. For the top-10 safeties, Smith is the only one older than 29 when he signed. Quandre Diggs is the only one who was 29. The other 8 were 24-27. We'll see what the contract details look like, but if Poyer would sign for similar to Mathieu I think Beane would go for it.

I don't understand this. Who is 29? Mathieu is 30 (well, 3 days short right now) and just signed for 3 years, $11M/yr AAV with $18M guaranteed. Poyer is 31 (well, 16 days past 31 right now) and has a cap hit of $10.7M this season. It doesn't make sense to compare the AAV of a contract signed 3 years ago with one reported today. Poyer is just 1 year older than Mathieu. Mathieu, of course, is coming off 3 straight years of honors - 2 years of 1st team all pro and 2 years of probowl. The other place Rosenhaus and Poyer will be looking is Vikes FS Harrison Smith, who a year ago at age 32 for 2021 signed a 4 year, $16M AAV contract with $26M guaranteed overall. Smith had 5 pro-bowls and a 2017 1st team all-pro on his resume and had 5 INTs and 10 PD to go with 89 tackles in 2020 Poyer had 5 INT and 9 PD to go with 93 tackles last year. We'll be lucky if Poyer would go for a Mathieu contract. I think he's gonna want something similar to Smith!

Any idea why?

Thanks for all the time you put into this. I should add something substantive, but all I can say right now is I read your title as "our picks, post draft booze, and Beane" (hat tip to Beane on Pat McAfee show)

Thanks. Do you know where I can find that data? I'm going to guess, if data on % of man game by game were available, we might find it was even higher prior to White's injury and fell off afterwards. I'll put it out there, none of us yet know what his ceiling on the field will be, but I don't think the Bills would have taken him at the bottom of the 2nd if they felt he was a '3rd down back'

100%, no doubt. I've been honest before that I was a "wrong Josher", and that one of my mistakes was totally misunderstanding how critically important the interpersonal and personal character aspect is, when choosing a player. These guys are all about to be fabulously wealthy by most people's standards. A 4th round draft choice like Gabe Davis has already earned $2M in 2 years. That puts them all in the top 0.5% of incomes, and most of the people outside pro sports who are at that level have worked at it for a couple decades after college. It takes a lot of character to maintain that "burning desire to be the best every week" that McDermott talked about, in the face of that kind of money and the public attention any football player attracts.

Quessenberry has been in the league since 2013, when the Texans drafted him in the 6th round. Ford is going into his 4th year. Clearly Quessenberry must have talent, since he was brought back after his Lymphoma treatment "gap years" and two different teams have had him on the roster. But I think there's some truth to the notion that it's harder to teach an older dog new tricks. Perhaps. There also seems to be an emphasis on run-blocking chops (Saffold, Quessenberry). It may also be true that if teams feel we have an effective run threat not named Josh Allen, that will back them off a bit and make pass protection easier.

I don't think the Bills will be cutting a DLman they drafted based on pre-season.

Judging by whose reaction? Sounds like a straw man to me. That was a great play. Almost cancels my memory of Addison going for the Kyler Murray sack instead of just running full bore into him, which could have resulted in an incompletion. Let's see what it looks like. Coulda been one of these "1 year deals structured to look like 2"

Good find. Almost makes it seem as though Kromer may have wanted some "raw clay he could mold" in Tenuta

I apologize most sincerely if I missed a careful and thoughtfull 1,000 word kind of response. I admit the search engine here isn't "all that", but I did bring up your posting history and look carefully for a response to where I previously asked this question before I asked it again. Then I searched. Clearly I missed your response, which is "me bad", but I did make a good faith effort, so might you be so kind as to link me to this response? (Doesn't matter if it was to me or someone else, though the latter might have kept me from finding it) As far as what I would have done, I don't have a problem with the Bills drafting Kaiir Elam in the first, or even moving up 2 spots to do so. I think CB is a premium position worthy of a late-first-round pick, and I think it's entirely possible that while Elam filled a need, he was also legitimately someone who the Bills saw as BPA at that position.

Might be worth adding that the Bills played more Man this past season than is generally believed, before White got hurt. I'll go a little further and say - I believe when the Bills defensive Brain Trust analyzed What Went Wrong on defense, they concluded that one of the flaws was that zone secondary scheme, with two guys in Wallace and Jackson who are both excellent off-ball corners but can not play press man effectively or jam receivers at the line without risk of being burnt. The answer to the plaintive fan cry "why are we giving those guys a free release off the line?" is "because that's what we had the player personnel to do, especially after White got hurt". The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. The argument some appear to be making that the Bills shouldn't have used a high draft pick on Elam because they could have just continued to do the same thing (play the same coverage) with late-round players, is pretty much that.

OK, that makes more sense then. So you're asking whether Hamlin and Johnson are better backup safety prospects than Lewis, Griffin, and McCloud? I would say the answer is "yes", but again - I'm speaking for him as a backup. I would agree it's not clear either Hamlin or Johnson can hold down the role full time, but then - it never is until a guy gets on the field more. Lewis, Griffin, and McCloud are guys who have yet to prove they can play on the boundary in the NFL or at all as Safety. McCloud has played 14 snaps in the NFL at CB (for Cincy - no idea how he did). Griffin hasn't played at all. Both Hamlin and Johnson have seen snaps at safety and played capably. The Bills pretty clearly see Lewis, Griffin and McCloud as CB prospects, not safeties. Griffin and McCloud haven't played That's true Someone told me (dunno their source) that the Bills are higher on Hamlin than on Johnson, so they may agree with you about Johnson. But the thing is, as a backup safety, Johnson has played about the same amount as Lewis has played as a backup CB. Both Johnson and Hamlin started and played 100% of the HOU game, which was not a harsh test. Prior to that, Johnson saw most of his snaps in the final game of the 2019 and 2020 season, where he played well against guys bound for the bus, while Lewis only other game was 2020 TEN as CB across from Josh Norman. That was a CF across the D. Hamlin has only come in for about 1/3 of a game - where Johnson had started Poyer, so we had 2 backups in at safety. He did OK. What are you seeing to say Lewis has been "notable" as a DB backup, in a good way? Was this preseason? Because https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/M/McClNi00/gamelog/2021/ doesn't show any snaps for the Bills last year, and only 14 snaps in 1 game for Cincy (I didn't see that game). Are you trying to construct an argument that McCloud is as good of a boundary corner prospect as Kaiir Elam based on physical measurements? And if not, what is your point, just that he has good physical measureables? Agreed, that's why they signed him initially and why they gave him a reserve contract this year.

I don't wanna get between you guys and your feelings. But elsewhere, you explained your draft philosophy that the first round is for drafting guys who will earn a $20M second contract if they succeed in the NFL. A quick glance at Spotrac's contract page shows that those positions are QB, LT, OLB/DE (pass rushers), WR, and yes, sometimes CB. Who, in keeping with your draft philosophy of "only draft $20M second contract guys in the first round", was available that you think the Bills should have picked in the 1st round at Pick #25 (or 23, for that matter)? What, according to your philosophy, should the Bills have done?