BarleyNY

The Browns had a better offensive roster than the Bills, but their defensive roster was definitely worse. Both had terrible special teams rosters though. That one is a tough call. The Browns also had truly horrible coaching. Hue Jackson might have been the worst NFL HC ever - and statistically that’s true. Then there’s Greggg running his ridiculous defensive scheme. Ugh.

https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/stats/passing#completionPercentageAboveExpectation Allen isn’t doing well with advanced metrics that account for things like drops and quality of receivers though. He’s dead last in Time To Throw and third last in Completion Percentage Above Expectation. One can argue that his TTT mark is mitigated somewhat by his ability to buy time to throw, but it’s also due to him almost never getting the ball out on his drops. That has to improve. Ditto his accuracy/timing. Hopefully the training he has been doing with his footwork helps there. He will have an improved cast around him so hopefully the experience he got last year and the work he’s done in the offseason help him take that big step forward.

You'd think so. Unless there’s some bias that Vegas could profitably exploit. Seems like looking at l the lines for all 32 teams collectively could shed some light on that. I randomly chose a site for those figures and totaled the wins. Total wins was 259.5 rather than the expected 256 so the average team wins was 8.1. +3.5 wins across the league seems pretty reasonable - and actually maybe a little low. I believe that there is one big reason for that: injuries. Fans are betting on expected outcomes of relatively healthy teams now. They aren’t factoring in the relatively low chance that THEIR team will have a catastrophic problem. They won’t see their QB get knocked out for most of the season or have their star player suspended indefinitely. But things like that will happen to a couple or a few teams. So I’d conclude that, if anything, Vegas is actually shading the win totals up ever so slightly to reap the benefits of those events. Not the other way around. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.actionnetwork.com/nfl/2019-nfl-win-totals-betting-odds-vegas

Don’t hold your breath. Ansah will have to wait until he is sure he will pass an NFL physical. That may not be for months. In the meantime there isn’t much NFL news to talk about with the post draft, pre training camp lull. He is just about the only notable free agent at a premium position left on the market so speculation to every possible destination articles will abound.

Yup. A 2+ year deal please. With Shaq playing his last season in Buffalo (he is) and Hughes on the last year of his deal (extend please) it’d be nice to have at least one quality DE under contract for 2020. Ansah makes a ton of sense for the Bills as well as some other teams. Hope we get him.

I can’t believe that anyone is expectation anything positive from Polite. The Jets wasted their 3rd round pick when they took him. They absolutely should've taken Allen with their first pick too.

When a player retires the contract they are playing under “tolls” (i.e. goes on hold). If they come back, then it is under that contract’s terms. Gronk has one year left on his contract with the Patriots so he’d play for them under that unless they released him or renegotiated it.

Agree with this except a ranking of 31st is not reasonable. A proper ranking might not be where we would like it to be (yet), but it’s better than that. Pump the brakes on the week 17 game. The Dolphins were 7-8, playing away in the snow and their coach was goes away from being fired. Any NFL team that is trying should be able to beat up like that on a team that isn’t. Agree on Allen. Time for him to step up and show us what he has. The offensive players around him are certainly good enough for him to succeed. Let’s see some development.

Smoky Bones is a chain that was started by Darden Restaurants (Olive Garden, Red Lobster, etc.) and then sold to a private equity firm. I’ve never eaten at one, nor would I except in extreme circumstances. The best BBQ in Buffalo was probably Kentucky Gregs, but the owners are semi-retired and only do catering now. I liked Fat Bobs the one time I ate there years ago and know a lot of people love it. One Eyed Jacks is good, but not great in my opinion. Smoke On The Water in North Tonawanda is well liked. I only ate there once and thought it was good, but not special at all. I’ll go back again in the summer when I can sit outside and get a bigger selection before I make my final decision about it. I’d defer to others on it. I do like Brick Yard BBQ quite a bit, but it's way up in Lewiston. Avoid Sticky Face, also in NT, at all costs. The food was horrible. I have not eaten at Dinosaur so I can’t speak to that. I do love great BBQ and I make it at home regularly - especially in the non-winter months. Looking forward to firing up my smoker soon.

Cowherd is a loud mouthed naysayer. He throws cold water on teams that have real hope of improving. He pumps up the obvious and big market teams. I’m sure it’s a schtick. He might be perfectly nice or a total tool in real life. No idea. Either way, view everything he says through that lens. Him dogging the Bills just means we are looking like we could really improve.

I guess they would rather test free agency and try to find a better fit elsewhere if they don’t get the option or extension. I can understand that.

Brown noser

That’s an odd thing to speculate. Rosen has handled an incredibly difficult and, quite frankly, embarrassing situation with a ton of class. I haven’t seen otherwise from him so far.

Yeah, I was surprised too. It’s also surprising to see how many aren’t even with the teams that drafted them when their options come up.

I don’t think Zay is going anywhere now. I don’t see him having any trade value to speak of, he’s still cheap and he will be one of the top 5 WRs on team. That means he gets at least this season to show more improvement. We will go from there. I’d be great to see him blossom, obviously. One less hole to fill on the team.

That is a fair statement. There were only 2 or 3 players of the 12 drafted in the remainder of the 2016 first round that were worthy of that status. A big problem with Shaq is that he was a much better fit for Rex’s outdated scheme than he has been for McD’s. He has been passable as a stopgap, but they aren’t going to pay him to keep him around once he’s off of his rookie deal.

I really disagree with this. If Lawson was a 3rd round pick he’d have a nice spot in a DE rotation as a DE3. That’d be very reasonable for someone picked there.

I researched this. Since 5th year options we instituted only one player who did not have his option picked up or have his contract extended by the option expiration date, only Mark Ingram remained with the team that drafted him. Technically he could be re-signed here, but realistically he’s gone after this season.

Totally agree that those are the two biggest issues: Regime/scheme change and generally poor drafting. The former is totally on Pegula. He needs to have an overarching philosophy for the team that the coaching staffs have to adhere to in order to even be considered. Let’s hope he’s learned that because I like where we are in that in general. As for drafting, I do like Beane and he certainly knows what fits McDermott’s needs so I think we will be okay there. I’m a lot less enamored by his moves in FA, but what I’ve seen to date might just be a short term tactic and not a general strategy. I’ll wait and see on that.

Thanks to the OP for a ton of work there. Yikes! Those are not great results to say the least.

That depends. The Bills will probably be looking for quality over quantity for the most part next offseason. Lawson will cancel out one of the better FA pick ups. But if more qualifying FAs are signed away from us than we sign then we will get something the following year. I’ve posted this before. It’s a great tool to see what our roster will look like moving forward. Just scroll down to “Roster Cap Figures”: https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/yearly/cap/

Agreed. Dinging the Bills for not filling their need at edge pass rusher over their need for a DT who can get pressure up the middle is dumb in light of the fact that Oliver was generally rated as a better prospect than any of the DEs still on the board at 9. Not recognizing that both were big needs is not excusable.

Correct. I checked into that in a previous offseason.* I could only find one example of a player who did not have his 5th year option picked up - or wasn’t extended prior to the deadline - by his drafting team who was still with that team . Mark Ingram and the Saints. A couple other players were well into contract negotiations at the deadline and had their deals done within days, but that was it. Shaq is gone unless he absolutely blows up this season and gets tagged. Anyone see that happening? I sure don’t. He was never going to be a pass rush stud like a lot of people hoped. Since he was drafted the offseason that we parted with Mario some assumed that he’d be the replacement. He’s excellent at setting the edge and can work for some pressure, but he’s really not what you want as a starting Edge player for today’s NFL. He’d make a great DE3 on a team and will probably get picked up by a team looking to draft a stud there. He’d be a really good player to hold down a DE spot while a rookie learns, then slide into that DE3 spot. No shame in that. He was just drafted too high. * Checked the 2018 draftees and it held true then too.

Man, I’d trade for either. Clowney has more value because of their ages so I’d give up more for him, but I’d take both if I could.

No. I said that he will get paid more than the $9M-$11M estimate, but less than the $20M estimate. That would put him right in that pack of players.