BarleyNY

The Kroft signing, contract and continued existence on the Bills roster is mind boggling. Beane (and McD) have done well overall and I like most of what they’ve done, but Kroft and a few other moves/decisions have been predictably terrible.

Well, he did play as an H back in college so listing him as a TE makes as much sense as a FB. Guessing he’ll be an H back here too.

Sixth and seventh round picks are basically worthless. They are nice for fliers on talented players with horrible injuries, raw small school talents or for trading. They can acquire a player that a team is looking to dump or sweeten a trade to make it look better for a team getting rid of a quality talent (ooh, we got three picks for X). But they’re easily acquired and generally get used for priority UDFA level players. So I’ll never gripe if one is used on a K, P or even a LS. Both teams took a shot at one. NBD

I agree with you (except I don’t think he even makes the PS). To date Duke has not distinguished himself in any way. The pool of potential NFL WRs who are at or exceed the minimum physical abilities to play in the league is incredibly deep. The ones that stay are the few that figure out the game and can separate themselves from those at the bottom of rosters. I have seen no evidence that Duke has done that - and at 27 he’s not improving much from here on out. There are too many younger (5 years younger) players out there who have abilities and potential that exceed Duke’s. There is zero reason to keep him on this roster or PS this season if he can’t contribute in a very meaningful way right now.

This makes no sense. Beane hasn’t been here long enough for players he drafted to even be eligible for new or extended contracts.

Much of this sentence is not true.

Food not worth trip

It’s also how defenses often find success against QBs with accuracy issues. For example, Cam Newton has been at the top of the league in percentage of man coverage versus zone during his career. I’m hoping Allen has improved his mechanics this offseason and is better in that regard. It’ll be huge if he has. I’m really looking forward to seeing Diggs in a Bills uni too, but Allen’s development is what I’m most anxious about.

My biggest question mark is Allen against man coverage. He lit up zones, but often struggled against man. Growth in that area will be paramount if the Bills are to advance past the first round of playoffs this season.

When Star was here we had a big man that couldn’t demand double teams or plug holes so how does losing him hurt us? I’m serious. He’s not under appreciated here because he’s been below average at his job while being way overpaid.

It very much depends on if he even stays in Minnesota. Remember it’s just a one year, $17.8M contract and he can’t sign a new one until the next league year. My bet is that the conditional pick depends on him signing another deal in Minny. I’ve got no problem with the Bills apparent lack of interest in Ngakoue. They’ve already invested so heavily in the DL he didn’t make a lot of sense. $55M on the books right now for this season, $50M next, a top 10 pick in 2019 and a second round pick this season is already a lot. Adding almost $18M this season and then possibly a contract with $22M or so AAV after would've been excessive.

A lot of teams could be in real trouble, but the Bills aren’t one of them. They’re spending and things will tighten, but they aren’t in real trouble. I don’t know that Milano gets extended, but decisions like that have to be made as the talent level rises.

That’s gotta be amongst the toughest of days for anyone. Thoughts and prayers to Fitz and his family. Probably a good reminder for those of us whose mom’s are still around to give them a call.

I’ll just repeat what I said earlier for everyone telling me the same thing you are. I’m not talking about what pro team people like more, I’m talking about support and enthusiasm for the sport at all levels. Being a town where the NFL team is the most popular does not mean that it’s a football town. I’ll leave it there.

There would be better football at the lower levels if it was a bigger part of the culture here. This isn’t a rip on WNY. Their hockey development of youngsters is fantastic. A talented young hockey player in NE Ohio should just move to a more hockey-centric place. There is no culture for it there. But there sure is here. There just isn’t a big football culture here - and it shows in the development programs. It doesn’t mean that people here don’t love their Bills with all their heart. I know they do.

Don’t confuse support for an NFL team with support for football. I grew up in the Cleveland area it’s very different there. It is not uncommon for people in Northeast (and Central) Ohio to go watch good high school matchups on Friday night, then spend Saturday watching college football (especially Ohio State) and then Sunday watching the NFL. That’s high school football games where you don’t know anyone playing and it’s not your alma mater. People watch the careers of players in high school through college to the pros. The field for my HS team has a capacity of 12,500 and it sells out for good matchups. I’ve never seen Buffalo support football like that at anything other than the pro level. But I know people who go watch the NHL combine. I see hockey nets in driveways and winter rinks in backyards. I can honestly say I had never seen either until I moved here from Ohio. I thought the local HS football field was for the Jr High when I moved here. A nice new one has since been built, but the capacity is so small. The Northtown rinks are something else though. The NFL is by far the most dominant sport in the USA and the Bills are more popular than the Sabres, but the grass roots support for hockey here is way above that of football.

With carryover it’s better to defer with a signing rather than a roster bonus. Think about it this way: Let’s say $5M of Dawkins’ roster bonus was changed to a signing bonus on his 5 year deal. With the roster bonus the team take the full hit this season. With it as a signing bonus they would have taken a $1M hit this season and carried $4M over to 2021. Then $1M would come off each season until all $5M is accounted for. There is typically the added bonus for the team that the $1M each year would be discounted by the percentage the cap would rise. Next year might have a decrease, but it would still be a help overall - and it would have given us more space next season. The argument that if he’s cut before the end of the deal that the team would take a bigger hit misses the fact that the team would have already carried that much cap space forward

That’s a fair point.

5 years total deal or a 4 year extension, depending on how you want to look at it. It’s pretty common to do deals like this at Thai point. Player gets some cash early and team locks him up early. The player gets a lucrative deal and security, but doesn’t maximize his earning like he could if he forced a franchise tag. I don’t have any issue with the length and value of the deal, but I wonder why the Bills chose to do a roster bonus for so much rather than making it all a signing bonus. Not a huge deal, but I would have preferred them to keep the additional flexibility of doing that.

Just because you’re paranoid it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

Fo’ reals. Seriously. Cam towing the company line isn’t nothing. And he just improved his chances of being the starter.

Yeah, it’s not a great look. Let’s face it, the Bills pretty much sell themselves in WNY. At its heart Buffalo is truly a hockey town, but the Sabres have been so bad for so long that they have to be almost impossible to sell here. I can’t imagine my job being dependent on doing that. And that situation is definitely not the fault of anyone in marketing.

I would think they warned him at least once or that there are some other extenuating circumstances. We don’t know for sure, but it would take some extreme institutional incompetence to result in the following situation: A reporter employed by the Bills whose job it is to report on the Bills does not know the rules, breaks them and is consequently suspended for violating them. Without some evidence of that I’m going with a reporter not taking some rules seriously and getting carried away. It really appears as though he violated the rules so I have a tough time thinking the Bills were looking for an excuse to fire him. Does anyone know if this is something he has been doing or if it was the first time?

NFL Rule Change Doc The clause I read is on the bottom of page 32. It only addresses which players are subject to waivers when sent to IR. It does not have info on who is eligible to be designated to return. IIRC you are correct that a player has to be on the 53 man roster prior to IR to be eligible for that, which would make sense.

Oh. I did not catch that and did not read the article. I retract my previous statement.