hondo in seattle

Just voted... still 50/50.

Every offensive position group is better than it was this time last year. 9-7.

I grew up in Cheektowaga but my parents weren't football fans. The first game I watched was a Browns game and I became a Browns fan when I was maybe 9 when the Brownies were still competing in the old Century Division with the Cards, Saints and Steelers. The Bills were hardly on my radar until 1969 when we drafted OJ first overall with tremendous fanfare. I was 10 at the time and quickly became a fan of both OJ and the Bills. I stayed a combined Bills-Browns fan for many years. (Could I have picked a worst duo???). But when the Browns moved to Baltimore in '96, I pretty much turned in my Browns fan club ID and focused my masochistic loyalty solely on the hometown Bills.

It's easy to be a Pats fan. It takes character to be a Bills fan. I wear Bills colors proudly.

I’m excited as the next guy. But even now, how good is our offense? My guess.... QB: C. This is the hardest one to predict. I’m conservatively guessing we’ll move up to average. OL: C. Better than the ‘F’ OL we fielded last year. WR/TE: C. Another upgrade versus last year but still not elite. RB: B. Depends how much Shady and Gore drink from the Fountain of Youth. It seems to me that our O has gone from bad to average. The OL only picked up one quality starter and a lot of depth. If I were Shady, I’d wait for the draft before uncorking the champagne.

I agree with the OP and most of the following commentary. But let me ask - do you guys believe we know have a playoff/SB caliber OL? Most at of the posts about the OL are about depth. I don’t think we have the right 5 starters yet. I wonder if Beane’s thinking we’re another year out with the OL. The guys we have now can hold down the fort and at the same time mentor the guys he’s hoping to acquire thru the draft.

OJ changed the course of more games than Taylor. As a human, he’s scum. But in my lifetime I’ve never seen a player play at a level so significantly above his peers.

I hate when we demonize groups of people. I fought in a war with honorable Americans who were Democrats. I also fought alongside honorable Americans who were Republicans. Both sides have good people and both sides have people who we might wish were better.

When you can still remember the day the Bills signed OJ, TO seems like recent history. But it's been 10 years already? Damn, my life is slipping by fast. I'm starting to worry the Bills won't win a SB during my allotted time on Earth.

I suppose every GM and scout looks at the combine a little differently. But I heard one (can't remember which) say that the interviews were the only thing that mattered to him. Tape already told him how the guy played. But the interview gave him insight into how the guy thought - which is something he didn't necessarily know before the combine.

Joe Merino is a semiprofessional draftnik from Charlotte, NC. Why does his opinion matter?

According to WGR, the Bills have met with 14 players at the combine. 7 are OTs. It's probably safe to say the Bills are drafting a tackle. Curiously, the Bills have only talked to one guard. They've talked to 2 TEs. Getting a TE in free agency does help on draft day. But it's no better than getting any other position of need in free agency. The more problems you solve before the draft, the better - whether it's TE or something else. https://wgr550.radio.com/articles/news/who-bills-have-met-nfl-combine

Easterby actually sounds like a useful guy: kind of a combination of life coach and culture-builder. McD should talk to him.

I like McD but this quote does nothing for me. Every fan knows the importance of scoring in today’s game - it’s not noteworthy to me that our coach does too. The open question is if he can deliver on his intentions.

If he's not from Carolina, why are we doing this???

Agree completely with Gunner. Even the GMs who say they're BPA guys draft for need to a degree. If you need a OT but best guy on your board - by a good margin - is a CB, you draft the CB. But if there are a bunch of players rated about the same, you take the OT.

In 1981, Joe Senser became one of the first TEs to gain over 1,000 yards in receptions in a season. He didn't gain over 1,000 yards the rest of his career.

Beattie Feathers. Rushed for over 1,000 yards (8.4 ypc) as a rookie in 1934 - first player in NFL history to do so. Never ran for more than 350 in a season thereafter.

Too early to talk about tendencies. But listening to these guys talk, I get the following impressions. * Beane really is a BPA guy - to a point. He'll draft a good guy at a position we don't need if he feels that this guy is clearly the best guy on the board. Because of this, at the end of the draft some fans may complain we drafted a couple players who weren't entirely necessary while neglecting some glaring needs. * McD and Beane don't want combine warriors. They want good football players who will work hard and put the team first. Athleticism is important, but it isn't everything. * As mentioned by CaptnCoke and others, Beane isn't afraid to trade. My guess is that he's just as likely to trade down as up. He wants to maximize his picks in a way that makes sense with his board & the needs of the team. So while Beane may be a BPA guy, it doesn't mean he'll passively wait for his turn and then choose the best player still available. He'll make some trades to make sure - as best he can - the needs of the team are met.

The quality of the players is so much more important than the age. But Badol is right... we kept the old players. Last year, we were the 28th youngest team in the league. Back in 2013, we were the 3rd youngest. And as all those youngsters matured and gained experienced, we didn't get any better. Being a young team doesn't help if you have the wrong youth. https://www.phillyvoice.com/ranking-nfl-teams-age-after-53-man-cutdowns-2018-edition/ I doubt that the turnover surprises many people. First of all, the NFL is a high turnover sport. On top of that we changed both our coach and our GM. McD - like every other coach - has a vision of what schemes he wants to run and what kind of players he wants to field. Almost inevitably, it's going to be different than Rex. And, almost inevitably, the way Beane drafts college players and evaluates FAs is going to be different than Whaley. As someone with a French mom, all I can say is: Vive la difference!

It may be true that OL play has declined over the years. But - as a Bills fan - I don't care about that. What I mean is I don't care about the absolute quality of our OL. I care about the comparative quality of our OL. We need it to be better at opening holes and protecting QBs than most other NFL lines if we want to be a playoff team. We weren't. Saying it's "not just the Bills" isn't really true when you think about it in these terms. The Bills OL was bad by current NFL standards. Only a few other teams were as bad or worse. But the decline of OL play is an interesting phenomena when most performances in sports get better over time as training, medical support, nutrition, gear, etc get better.

Cottrell? There’s a blast from the past. Bored with retirement?

One of the things that skews the correlation is the cost of players on rookie contracts. If a team is able to draft well at a certain position, it won't have to allocate a lot of cap dollars for that position. I know some teams plan cap allocation by position. I wonder how they take this into account.

Interesting and maybe a little counter intiutive. I would have expected there to be a correlation between QB spending and wins. Seeing this makes me guess there’s no strong correlation between what a team pays for QB play and the quality of play they actually get. Nice work, PP. Shows another side of analytics.

Good find. Sounds like a stand up guy.