BADOLBILZ

Aiyuk is even more dominant than Diggs was when they acquired him..........but he wouldn't be my preference because he's a lot like Diggs in that he's built more for the regular season. My contention since we saw the Chiefs rough up the Bills WR's in the 2020 AFCCG is that their WR corps was built without consideration for the playoffs. I think the Bills have eventually/gradually identified that and have changed the type of targets they have been looking for. To me, the better fit for Buffalo would be DK Metcalf. I'm sure statistical models wouldn't project him to be as good as Aiyuk in the regular season over the next few years..........Aiyuk is clearly the more efficient player. But when the refs put the flags away DK has the physicality to excel and he's proven that in the playoffs. I also think his future contract cost could be substantially less than that of Aiyuk........maybe $5M to $8M aav less. He has less contract leverage and his stats say he is more of a high-end "WR1B" compared to Aiyuk in the regular season. His trade value is probably lower because of the regular season projections.

The biggest change for the Bills since 2020? They had a top 3 WR corps in 2020. They have a bottom 3 to 6 WR corps now. Part of that is the Bills letting their WR corps atrophy greatly...........it's not like the 2020 group was a bunch of kids they failed to build thru the draft so they added a bunch of mid-to-late career vets. The bigger part of their decline in the league rankings is that the league has had a huge influx of WR talent each season.........and that 2020 talent they had might not rank top 12 in today's game. Defense's all broadly adjusted to taking away big plays because they were getting overwhelmed because everybody suddenly had WR talent. Offense's have been impacted because they don't execute well enough to string together 10+ play drives without mistakes...........not because defense's have gotten dominant. So offense's are trying to get MORE playmakers.........guys who can still make plays against defense's that are playing bend-but-don't-break defense.

You are right. Because "everyone eats" only works if the offense produces enough to feed everyone. The Daboll Bills had a season with a near record for individuals who scored a TD in a season. Everyone ATE because they had a superstar WR1 paired with that superstar QB. Having a star weapon creates space for everyone else. There just isn't any logic in the idea that they are better off without a difference making star WR.

Again, you've never taken a wait-and-see approach. You are synonymous with bad predictions on TSW @eball. You are the gold standard for wrong calls made on this site. And what's worse for your claim to being such a great fan.........you are the physical manifestation of disloyalty by quitting on your Bills season tickets because of the choice to fire Rex and hire McDermott. You can't put that or any of those peanut buttery spirits back in the bottle.

Like I said, no reasonable observer would have been surprised if MVS or Claypool hadn't found a team yet and they ended up spending the season as vets on a practice squad. And I mean..........if Emmanuel Sanders had "one foot out the door" after producing a near-career-average 52 yards per game prior to joining the Bills.........then what is MVS when coming off a 20 yard per game season last year? One foot in the grave and another on a banana peel?

1. Wait-and-see is not an approach. It's a lack of any opinion whatsoever. Which is not REALLY the case with you in this post. You have opinions you just don't want to show a logical basis for it. 2. Projecting your 5th target as "likely" to catch 40-50 passes is bold. That probably suggests that one or more of the most targeted players was injured for a big chunk of the season. Also, why would that production tell me that their offense would be fine? There isn't any necessary correlation there.

OK then it's settled........you were just lying. Beane never said Coleman was their WR1. You can't prove it because it did not happen. As for Samuel being "the Bills WR1" to begin the season........unless they trade for someone else he enters the season as clearly their most accomplished WR. There isn't a close second. Numbers assigned to a WR first represent their place in the pecking order within the team........and on a broader scale their place within the league. Some teams ultimately turn out to not have had a WR1............others have multiple. I do think Curtis Samuel starts the season in Diggs' "Z" position in 3 WR sets and that Samuel and Shakir will most likely be the only 2 WR on the field in 2 WR sets(unless Samuel is being used in the backfield instead of Cook/Davis OR Shakir gets supplanted in the slot by their desire to feed Coleman there). I also don't think that starting the season as the Bills WR1 will pay dividends for the Bills or Samuel.........if only because it doesn't promise to be a matchup advantage for Buffalo. Samuel has never really been more than a WR3 facing lesser DB's prior to this. It's going to be a big jump in competition and I think eventually Allen will have to turn elsewhere. But to start the season, yep Samuel is likely the primary WR target. I don't think that was the intention when they acquired him but they weren't aware that they would trade Diggs at that time. I do think Shakir ultimately will end up leading the team in receiving yardage with a modest number around 900 but at the end of the season he is unlikely to be viewed as a WR1 on the broader scale around the league. And Kincaid should end up being the most targeted player overall but if he keeps putting up a pathetic 9 yards per catch that would require a near 100 catch season just to even get to 900 yards. I hope he is more productive at gaining yardage and scoring TD's this season but I also believe he might have less room to operate this season because of the lack of threats on the outside to open up the short/intermediate areas. I think it was totally unnecessary to expand on how Samuel/Kincaid fit in relative to Coleman/Shakir but you asked for it, there it is.

Beasley, Brown and Diggs were all producing when they came to the Bills and were thus valued by the league and expensive to acquire. MVS, Claypool and Hamler are all dumpster dives coming off bad or lost seasons. It wouldn't have been a surprise if none of them had found a team by training camp and ended up spending the season on some teams practice squad(as Hamler did last season). The data about players who didn't get a bump are much more recent and relevant.........the likes of Emmanuel Sanders, Trent Sherfield and Deonte Harty...........all who saw significant declines from their previous "healthy" production after being paired with Allen. Basically EVERY pro personnel WR acquisition following that 2019-2020 stretch. I expect Curtis Samuel will at least break the trend of big drops in production but it wouldn't surprise me if the other 3 didn't do a damn thing for Buffalo this season.

Actually........FYI: "He can actually play some inside...you know....I think position 1....you know......I think Joe would probably line him up outside as a standard X receiver on the outside". -Brandon Beane press conf on 2nd round selection Keon Coleman I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you weren't gaslighting us............but you TOTALLY misread his comments. He was saying the first position that they'd line him up at was as a standard X. Nobody assigns numbers to the WR positions. Letters. Letters. Get it straight, dude.

I think @Alphadawg7 is gaslighting us here. If Beane had called Coleman the Bills WR1 at any point every Bills podcaster would have had milk come out of their nose in that moment.........whether they were drinking any at the time or had to generate their own.

You see I would say that there is an abundance of data that tells us to expect these guys to underwhelm. Samuel, entering year 8. MVS year 7. Claypool year 5. KJ Hamler year 5. Shakir year 3. It's not like it's some young, unproven(one way or another) group that's 23 years of combined NFL experience. They have A LOT of history that proves who they are. As fo players getting a bump in production playing with Allen..........in reality that data isn't very encouraging either. The lesser invested players have all failed to produce. MVS, Claypool and Hamler(who is kept together with popsicle sticks and gum at this point) are all dumpster dives. It's not like they paid good money for productive players like Diggs, Brown and Beasley.

@BarleyNY already spoke to the two different things you are conflating regarding "X" and "WR1". But it's not a "confirmed fact" in either regard. Beane said Coleman was going to be an X receiver after he was drafted but then signed MVS.........who is basically only of any use as an X. I'd call that hedging a bet. I think a particular type of amnesia that the offseason has wrought upon some is that being a highly productive WR isn't just about physical traits. The Bills have ALWAYS been an option-route based offense since Allen was drafted. It's a pretty complicated system for a young WR. That's likely to remain mostly the case. The system requires the WR's to be able to read what the defense is trying to do pre-snap in order to be on the same page as the QB. Coleman is pretty raw. Think of how hard it's been for NFL legacy Kaiir Elam to acclimate. Think of how it took Davante Adams 3 full seasons to learn how to play the position well in the NFL. And he's my ceiling comp for Coleman.

In the slot Shakir had the greatest advantage a short armed WR could ask for. Moving him "around" to positions where he is less likely to get a free release is not a good thing. Like I said, I see the Bills running 1/3 or more of their offensive snaps with only 2 "WR" on the field. I also suspect that they will play a lot more condensed formations where basically NOBODY is really outside. Rams-esque. We already know McDermott has long been obsessed with that outside zone run game McVay ran(even though the Bills inevitably always end up being better on gap runs). They could very well get into week 2 of the season and realize they just don't have the personnel to win matchups outside. That could be good for Shakir...........or then again maybe they decide they want to get Coleman on the field in tight formations(see what LA Rams did with Puka Nacua and KC did with Rashee Rice) and it costs Shakir snaps and targets.

The fact that you are so certain that Keon Coleman is going to be WR1 explains your over-confidence. He was the 8th WR off the board. A second round pick. Very young for this class and relatively unproductive in college.

Again, it comes down to likelihoods. And it's statistically unlikely that the receivers that the Bills have are going to be very good. That's why they are going to rank somewhere between 27th-30th in the NFL as a unit going into this season. Maybe the Bills, Brady and Allen suddenly get ahead of the curve at WR for a change and get a lot more out of this group than they are projected to produce. It's just not likely.

Yes to the highlighted....... the point is that Diggs' and Shakir's roles were so different that it's hard to draw the apples-to-apples comparison you we're making. Everything from target share to playing very different positions and the priority that defense's placed on defending them. I'm more optimistic about Shakir than anyone else in their WR corps. If I HAD to bet he would get 90+ targets and would lead the team in receiving yardage. But because of the lack of a player on the perimeter who can force defense's to give them extra attention, that could lead to the inside guys like Shakir and Kincaid having their territory compressed by squatting defense's. I could see a lot more contested catches and a huge yards per catch drop-off for Shakir. I mean, why are teams going to give Shakir room to create YAC opportunities if they can cover Coleman or MVS with one eye in the backfield? It was critical for them to significantly improve their boundary WR options. And "on paper" they did not. So we are talking likelihoods here.

Yeah but the flip is that in Diggs first 9 games he put up 834 yards (93 yards per game). Basically double the 46 per game that Shakir averaged over the last 10. 46 yards per game(782 yards in a 17 game season) simply isn't going to be the kind of "top 2" receiver production they need. Shakir played well down the stretch but the Bills passing game also just kinda' sucked after Brady took over.

Not that simple......let alone "easy". He's basically been a WR3 all of his NFL career........including his previous "career" season in Carolina. Now he's probably WR1 going into the season and getting matched up against the best CB's in the league instead of nickel and dime backs. HUGE upgrade in competition for him.

Yeah that kind of logic used to be the norm around here during the drought. Remember when Marv took over as Bills GM and chose the strategy of signing free agents that nobody else wanted because the belief was that the Patriots were winning SB's with a cast of nobodies who bonded around their lack of individual identity? Man we had a whole board full of dopes who were drinking that Kool-aid. The Chiefs have been trying to have an excellent WR corps. They have drafted one in the first or second round in each of the last 3 drafts. And, in truth, they've always had at least 2 receiving targets finish in the top 32 of receiving yards in the NFL in each season of Mahomes career. So contrary to @Thurman#1 hypothesis about being good at WR not mattering..........the fact remains that teams that reach the SB normally have that dynamic of two highly productive receiving targets. In fact, the quality of the second receiving option has been one of the biggest indicators of whether a team will go deep into the playoffs for a very long time now. The closest the Bills got to a SB, coincidentally, was the only year under Allen when they had 2 receiving targets in the top 32 in receiving yardage.

Again. You simply gotta' know a stat like that is wrong if you follow the NFL. Let alone if you are a fan of the team and the player. Just too obvious.

and then this will happen.........

I very much agree with the general premise that the WR sucked in that game and that it impacts Allen's statistical performance. But it's not the bulk yards. That's misleading data. They made much of that back and it didn't impact them on the scoreboard the way it makes it sound. That should be the punctuation of the statistical argument not the opener. You are correct in the above post, that it's really the efficiency data that gets skewed by the WR poor performance. That's where the argument should go. But all people want to bring up is the bulk yardage and that opens the door to argue against that. It sort of reminds me of the narratives about "not passing for 300 yards" back in 2015 and 2016 when the Bills were leading the NFL both in big plays and rushing and were scoring well. You can't pass for a TD when you've already run the ball for said TD. But people would argue that those offense's were bad. They were actually the best offense's the Bills had since the early 1990's.

When he gets to the 5th break in his route........air just has to tip its hat.

Haven't seen routines like that in such fly headwear since the 80's

Barnwell ranks the NFL "weapons" groups. The WR/TE/RB groups for this season: https://www.espn.com/nfl/insider/story/_/id/40519280/ranking-nfl-team-wr-te-rb-talent-2024-top-players-49ers-eagles-dolphins 24. Bills Yikes. But that's up from the pff WR-alone rankings (27th).