jwhit34

The Duke love is the gift that keeps on giving...and is in the tradition of longshot WR love. Reality is if it was Duke vs. Hodgins, Hodgins is the same size, is a little faster, has better hands, runs better routes and is younger. Add in he's a draft pick and I don't think the decision is even close. Hodgins may not even make it, they like McKenzie. Duke is most likely #8 at this point with Foster 9th. The 6th WR will probably not be active for games, let alone a 7th, so I doubt they keep 7. Diggs, Brown, Beasley, Davis and Roberts (for returns) will be active. The 6th, be it Hodgins or McKenzie, will probably be inactive unless they have a bunch of injuries.

Well, it's way too early and by no means is it time to make comparisons, but I do remember another WR drafted in the 4th round... I'm not saying he's Andre Reed and going to have a hall of fame career but the reports about Davis remind me a little of Reed. Works hards, workout animal, catches everything. Remember, Burkett was picked ahead of him. And what a draft they had in '85, Bruce Smith, Derrick Burroughs, Reed, Frank Reich, Burkett, Dale Hellestrae was a long snapper forever, even Hal Garner was a flash in the pan, 3 guys played 15 years or more in the league and 9 played at least 5. It definitely helped having 2 picks in each of the first 4 rounds.

My thought in managing the RB position has been draft an RB 3 out of every 4 years in the 3rd-4th round. Always have them on rookie contracts unless you hit it big on someone and then maybe you extend them. If you whiff on one there are always vet UFAs you can sign cheap to be your #3. You probably never have more than $5-6 million (and most of the time much less) of the cap used for RBs and you can get excellent production. Singletary-Moss is setting up that way. If both perform well this year, they can probably skip a year and then draft another one in 2022.

Lots of good point made here. Williams' age is at the top of the list. Also remember the Bills started Howard Ballard at RG the first year. The state of the O Line is probably the best example of why Beane's approach is so good. They have a lot of options because they brought in so many guys who can play. Drafting Ford in the 2nd round alone gives them so much leeway. If he's a 1st round pick you may be more inclined to force him in at RT because of draft status. If his best position is guard so be it. And bringing in Williams on a low risk contract opens up great possibilities. If he pans out he's not going to demand Dawkins money, they can do a 3 year deal a la John Brown and Cole Beasley and see what happens. Meanwhile, he brings in Winters and if the Ford-Williams combo works on the right side he has the option to have a proven starter as the interior backup guy or go younger (Bates/Boettger). And he still has Feliciano. What a great a spot to be in. That's how you build a roster.

Was on WROC Channel 8 in Rochester last night. Saw the 4th qtr. and OT. crazy game.

The post on ESPN by MLJ was much more complete: Buffalo Bills quarterback Jake Fromm insists that text messages in which he said "only elite white people" should be able to purchase guns are not indicative of his character, nor do they represent the way he was raised. "That's not where my heart is," Fromm said Friday, speaking to local media for the first time since screenshots of the conversation emerged in June. "The one thing that I want to do here on this earth is love God and love people, and I fell short of that. I want to make amends and really be better from here on out so that I can earn their trust and really bring something to this football team." He quoted Fromm further: Fromm called the text a product of his "lack of perspective, being naive and being young and immature." He said jokes or comments like that were not an occurrence from him growing up and "were never said" in his household. "I made a mistake and I'm going to own up to it, but that's not indicative of who I am," Fromm said, "and I promise you that is not where my heart is at." And there's even more in the post I encourage all to read it. I commend MLJ for the including all of that in his post, his post was a gazillion times more objective than the Tweet. I think it's unfortunate in our "Twitter limited # of character world" that the Tweets end up > the actual reporting, which in this case MLJ did right. Link: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/29615286/jake-fromm-looks-make-amends-elite-white-people-text

In the movie, Remember The Titans, Julius Campbell says to Gary Bertier, "Attitude reflects leadership." That has been true with the Bills forever, it was great in Levy/Polian era, and finally after the drought years it is positive in the McDermott/Beane era. Helps to have good players too. Helps to have leaders who know how to evaluate players.

I had another idea: Create 4, 8 team divisions: AFC Northeast: Buffalo, Miami, NE, Jets, Steelers, Browns, Ravens and Bengals AFC Southwest: Indy, Texans, Jags, Titans, KC, Vegas, Chargers, Denver NFC Northeast: Dallas, Giants, Eagles Washington, Packers, Bears, Lions, Vikings NFC Southwest: Rams, SF, Cardinals, Seattle, Falcons, Saints, Panthers, Bucs Play a 14 game schedule where you play every team in your division twice Each division would play Sunday games at 1, 4:30 and 8 pm and one on Monday night You would have a modified bubble: teams would practice during the week at home and then each division would have a game site that all 8 teams travel to on the weekend. Top 4 teams in each division make the playoffs (expand by 1) No byes In AFC, #1 in NW division plays #4 in SW division, #2 in NW plays #3 in SW, #3 in NW plays #2 in SW and #4 in NW plays #1 in SW division, ditto for NFC After round 1, re-seed By playing 14 games schedule and having a bye week in the original 17 game schedule, you have 3 built in weeks in case something goes awry or they want to start the season a week later. And since they are playing only in division, one division could have something go wrong and shut down for a week while the other 3 divisions play. If all goes without a hitch, then they can use those weeks for scheduled byes or have a week off before the playoffs.

I don't get all the angst. His pay was out of line with his potential role, so there is cap savings. Most importantly, if Winters is a done deal Long would have been at best the 10th best offensive lineman (Dawkins, Spain, Morse, Winters, Ford, Nsekhe, D. Williams, Bates, Boehm) and maybe a toss up with Boettger who is cheaper. I think there will be fewer cutdown day deals because of covid. The cap and roster management due to covid strategy outweighs the possibility of trading for a 6th or 7th, well done Beane.

If Phillips is healthy, they still have Oliver, Butler, Phillips and Jefferson to rotate on inside. That should be very good. If all perform as expected it may be Star Who(?). Or if Oliver has a breakout year, A Star is Born.

Two firsts and a 3rd for a safety - I'd say what the Bills gave up in comparison for Diggs looks pretty good.

Top 3 rounds in whole tourney: Fish 37 round 2, Kyle 27 round 2, Kyle 25 round 1. Next 3 best rounds are all 20. That's pretty dominant by those two guys (Fish had 18 round 1).

Unpopular take on TBD: Duke Williams has been vastly overrated here ever since he got to Buffalo.

First round pick in '79 which they used on Tom Cousineau. He was eventually traded for a first which turned into Jim Kelly 2nd round pick in '78 - Scott Hutchinson 3rd round pick in '78 - Danny Fulton 2nd round pick in '80 - Joe Cribbs 4th round pick in '79 - Ken Johnson

Of those 2 I picked the Hughes trade. I don't think anyone mentioned Cousineau for a 1st that turned into Jim Kelly. The other trades way back that were brought up were really good too. If they would have kept him longer, the Rashad for Dennis Shaw trade would be way up there. The Frank Lewis for a broken down Paul Seymour is a very underrated deal. Even though the 5 picks didn't pan out that great, getting that kind of haul for OJ was really good. Loved the Bennett trade and it was the right move but not a lopsided deal.

I agree with you I included him in the poll because of his popularity here, was interested to see the response.

Who will be the most notable cuts on offense and defense?

Indoor lacrosse isn't nearly on the level of the NBA, it's a minor league and a minor sport. Same reason Bisons (baseball) are not included.

I see it says Bills and Sabres but throw the Braves in there too... Marv Levy Lou Saban Lindy Ruff Dr. Jack Ramsay Ramsay did a remarkable job with one superstar (Bob McAdoo), an emerging player in Randy Smith and a bunch of good role players. He should have been retained as coach after the '75-76 season but had a falling out with Paul Snyder and all he did was win the NBA title the next year with Portland. Imlach was only coach for a couple of seasons (outside of Levy and Ruff, that seems par for the course with Buffalo coaches) and really made his impact more as a GM.

The nice thing is that are potentially numerous ascending players that played prominent roles last year: Offense: Allen, Singletary, Knox, Dawkins, Ford, offensive line as a unit (year 2 together) Defense: Oliver, Edmunds, H. Phillips, Tre White, Harrison Phillips 5 ascending players on each side of the ball, then add new acquisitions Diggs, Moss, Epenesa, I'd thrown in Quinton Jefferson and Addison, that's a huge potential upgrade.

Star Lotuleilei

Instead of this change, what if they changed the formation rule to allow up to 8 players on one side and you're called for an illegal formation penalty only if the ball is not touched within 15 or maybe 20 yards of where it is teed up. If the kicking team does onside kick it will be touched within that yardage so no penalty. If the kicking team fakes and kicks deep, it's a penalty and ball is automatically spotted at the opponents 40 yard line.

If it comes to pass can ESPN make a 30 for 30 called The First Dance?

Who wins the job and feel free to add your reasons why.

Totally agree. If you go on the premise that most coaches for sure and probably GMs too played the game at least on the collegiate level if not the pros, and 70% of the people who did (and that is an accurate number) are African-American, you would think that way more than 13% of the coaches and GMs would be African American.