BarleyNY

Stuff like that gets overplayed every year. "Look who's working out together" articles are nice fluff pieces, but rarely amount to anything on the field. Besides, it was highly unlikely that either was going to be here after this season anyway.

The HC just chose his GM a few months ago. They're on the same page. As for competing, I'm not convinced that the Bills are any better or worse right now than they were right before the trades. They swapped a more talented, but less productive WR for a less talented, but more productive one. They traded a man coverage corner who had one good and one bad year for a zone corner that had one good, one injured and one bad year. Makes sense seeing as how we are a zone team this season. Plus they picked up draft capital in the process. You know, they might actually be better off in the short term and long term now that I think about it. Hey, they did do both.

What if they've been told to build for the long run and for an eventual SB run rather than to expend capital to push to be one of 5 or 6 teams with a shot at a WC spot and an early playoff exit in the short term?

That's incorrect. One of the fundamentals of the WCO is replacing some of the running game with short passes. But that isn't the whole system. Another fundamental is the use of Hi-Lo concepts in the passing game. A vertical threat comes in pretty handy for that.

Maybe. Still, it is odd to hear - especially from both. McD sure doesn't seem like a guy who'd let players slide on being out of shape.

/thread If it's such a chore to for him or others to play now, they're free to retire.

4.45 forty for Zay. Sammy ran a 4.43. Hopefully Zay adjusts to the NFL quickly. He certainly has the speed to play on the outside as an X. Whoops. Didn't see that you slready covered Jones.

Amen. Pegs going with Wrex and his 3-4, 2-gap read and react scheme while the team was already sitting pretty with Schwartz's top defense that played an attacking 1-gap 4-3 was a horrific mistake. Just Bush League.

Agreed. Now is the time for this new regime to mold the team into the type they want. They're getting rid of players that they don't want to keep - or can't keep. They've jettisoned and replaced pretty much the whole defensive backfield from last season. It had been one in transition from press zone, C2 to man, C0. Now we're moving to C3 with a lot of bail tech by the CBs. I didn't expect such a thorough house cleaning, but I can see why it was done. Watson, however talented, is a huge risk. He has yet to produce at a level near his talent level and with one more season left on his rookie deal, there's a tough, risky decision in the near future. Sammy is going to get paid well by some team after this season, but it'll be a team who's regime is in trouble and doesn't mind taking a big risk. The stable teams won't value him as highly because they won't shell out big money for such risk. And that's why the Bills got what they could for him now - they aren't in a spot where they need to take big risks like that so they were moving on after this season anyway. Also this.

It's getting a little late for Indy still to be screwing around with this. They should've had a semi-viable or better QB (besides Luck) on their roster weeks ago.

Probably had to get treatment on his chest during interview time.

Watkins' value takes a big hit due to him being in the last year of his contract. I'm not sure how Young valued him, but I'd bet it was a weighted average of his 3 seasons or at least the last two. Maybe even a linear regression that projects some improvement. I get fans' excitement over Watkins' potential - and that's okay for fans to do - but it's not how a GM should calculate a player's value. The best way is to assign probabilities to various realistic outcomes and take the weighted average. That factors in the risks of a certain player. There's going to be a difficult decision teams are going to have to make on Watkins next offseason because of his mix of potential and risk. One GM is going to talk himself into paying Watkins based on the best case scenario. It'll probably be a GM or coach that is under pressure to win immediately and they'll take the risk because it'll either work out and help save their job or they won't be around when the mess needs to be cleaned up anyway.

Yup and yup. He's probably not a good fit for this defense. Some 3-4 team with need of a thumper at ILB will deal for him. This sort of thing is why I hate the coaching carousel here. 4-3 in 2014 to 3-4 in 2015 and 2016 and now back to 4-3. Rex's insistence on completely retooling a top 5 defense is still haunting us.

A big concern with Ragland is that he's a 3-4 ILB, not a 4-3 LB. He could legitimately have mid round pick value to a 3-4 team in need of a downhill, thumping ILB.

This might help with your optimism: https://mobile.twitter.com/NFLDrafter/status/896100220341174272 I can't figure out how to post a pic of the chart, but it shows Ethan Young's MAVEM calculation for the trade. It's an "analytics" style tool he developed to value trades involving draft picks. In short, the Bills cleaned up on these trades, adding $17.85M in value. It's further proof that Beane and McD are using analytic tools to build this roster.

A) The article is spot on, as is the OP. B) Not FAIR to those players. That's ridiculous. I'm not even convinced this team changed its win total for the worse this season with these trades. Even if for the sake of argument I assume that it does, I'm at a loss to find any sense in that comment. Playing football is those players' jobs. If Kyle Williams is so depressed about the moves that he wants to forego his $6.3M salary and retire early, so be it. And would you have felt the same way if, instead of being traded, Watkins had gotten injured again?

#1 CB hasn't changed, it was always going to be White.

It's difficult to win a blockbuster trade up early in a draft. The Julio Jones scenarios are rare, but they do exist. There's a good reason for that - it's because teams moving up are usually a lot more desperate than the ones moving back. Often the regime doesn't have much to lose because they are under a lot of pressure to improve immediately. The GM and/or HC doesn't much care about next year's picks because they won't be around for that draft anyway if they don't improve. Stable regimes take advantage of those teams in those situations. The moral of the story isn't "Never trade up!" it is ""Don't trade up out of desperation." Trust your process and player evaluations so you don't talk yourselves into chasing a mirage.

The 49ers are likely to have one of the top picks. If they go the Cousins route they'll want to deal. If not, then Cousins will be available. The Rams still have a terrible team and might have a top pick even if Goff makes strides. They could deal. In addition to Cousins, Garappolo will hit the market and a QB needy team will take a shot with him. That could be a top drafting team. The other interesting situation is the Ravens. They're going to be bad this season. I'd bet that they'd draft Flacco's replacement if they could, but they look like a rebuild is in order. You never know, they might favor a haul of picks to replacing him. Besides, they run a vertical offense and might be looking for a different kind of QB than we are. I know Tyrod is good at the vertical game too, but McD seems to favor a quicker, shorter passing game. I see him looking for a better version of Peterman. Speaking of whom, wouldn't it be nice to hit the lottery there and have our FQB plus all of those picks?

It's fair to say he's been more productive.

I don't see how Sammy would've stayed a Bill much longer. The team declining his option was the writing on the wall. I'd have picked it up unless the doctors were telling me some bad things. That'd have bought another season to see if he could get and stay healthy. I thought it was worth the risk, but McD obviously didn't. After this season the options were: - Letting him walk for a possible comp pick if we qualified. - Signing him to a new contract. We'd have to outbid the league and I don't see that happening. If he had injury issues and couldn't demand a large deal, then he'd likely go to a team with an elite QB on a short term deal. - Franchise tag him. That's the only real possibility. He'd have to stay healthy and have a stellar season. A long term deal would mean a top 5 WR contract and that's tough to sell me on due to his injury history Or we'd have him for that year under the tag. Or possibly trade him at that point. If his foot breaks again this season or he's on IR for any other reason everyone will be singing the praises of Beane and McD.

Agree with the OP. Been saying much the same things.

Yes. The Watkins deal was particularly good. The team was moving on from him after this season and he didn't want to stay here. We got what will almost certainly be a very high 2nd round pick and a CB who showed real potential in 2014 prior to injury in return. That's stealing.

They're earning my trust gradually. Today was a big step in the right direction.

Not a tank. Smart moves and building draft capital for long term.