BarleyNY

Is there anyone on the roster that predates this regime? Lawson got drafted the prior year (2016) but left and came back. Our LS is also a 2016 addition. That it. Always a lot of turnover on NFL teams.

The deep pockets thing is awfully weak. Araiza got a $216k signing bonus. Not really much to go after after taxes. And as for his salary, the allegations torpedoed that. Not to mention that teams knew about it before the draft and it could’ve kept him from being drafted (or even signed) at all. As for the Bills, drafting him obviously was a mistake. Not sure what they were thinking, but it was only a sixth round pick and a bad look by the team. It was not a huge misstep by any means, but a mistake nonetheless.

Sure. I don’t know that that’s a fair benchmark, but I get what you’re saying. For all the investment in it we should see a more dominant defense, especially in the playoffs. I also think in today’s NFL that, in general, ROI is better on offense than defense. A truly dominant pass rusher is probably an exception, but beyond that O>D.

I have a couple thoughts on that. There’s more to building a team than hitting on a reasonable percentage of draft picks. Not that the Bills haven’t developed into a top team. They have. They just haven’t won it all. As for the picks, the issue is more the forest than any single tree IMO. Over six drafts this team has used 5 of 7 first round picks on defense. The only monster FA contract was also on defense. The only offensive use was the Allen pick and the Diggs trade. If you look at the rosters of other top teams I don’t think you’ll find them skewed in that direction. Here’s a good link for that. So I think the lack of resources used on offense is a big issue. As for the cap, we are at a point where we have a budget. Everything is a choice of this or that, not yes or no. But we aren’t in cap hell or anything. There are obvious places to clear space and we’ll be able to fill out our roster with lower tier FAs. We could make at least one moderate or big FA signing too. That big one depends on whether the re-sign Edmunds. More money to spend if we make some other moves too. Again, this or that. I wish there were some great FA WRs coming on the market. It would be easy to say we should spend on one instead of Edmunds. My biggest issue with re-signing him is that it would be yet more resources spent on that side of the ball. It might not happen in one season, but I think investing in the offense is the way to success in the postseason. Solidifying the OL and finding another offensive playmaker (who we will use) should be jobs 1 & 2 this off-season IMO.

Addison won’t be available so I went JSN, who’s got a chance to make it to us.

I’ve looked at a lot of different analyses of draft performance. Here is a three part one that does a decent job. Harvard has put out some good stuff on it too. I think casual fans expect far too much success from draft picks. Just look at the optimism on this board for late round picks. The statistics do not bear that out at all. I think this regime has been in the average range as far as pick usage. Let’s look at their first round picks. According to the analysis linked above first round picks’ performance is: - 30% Players who perform well enough to get their second contract with the team that drafted them. These are almost always premium contracts. - 50% Players who sign their second contract with another team. These are usually lesser contracts. - 20% Players who bust and are out of the league. - Early picks have a better success rate than later ones. Looking at the Bills first round pick usage they got: - Tre White, elite CB in top 30% group - Josh Allen, elite QB in top 30% group - Tre Edmunds, arguably in the top 30% and definitely in the 50% group - Oliver, probably in the 50% group. Good player who didn’t live up to his top 10 draft slot. - Trade for Diggs, certainly a talent well worth that pick. You can discount it somewhat due to the extra contract expense. Still, excellent value. - Rousseau - TBD, but I think he’s already safely in the 50% group. He could wind up in the top 30% group tho. - Elam - TBD. That performance is much better than league average. I think if I ran through the second round we’d come back to Earth because the Bills have definitely underperformed there. After that I think we’d be pretty average since league wide performance falls off every round. Obviously coaching and development play a part too, but that’s where my head is at.

I think the Giants brass and ownership are smart enough to avoid tying themselves to Jones long term.

That’s not even a good straw man. Please try to do better than that. I don’t want them to put themselves in a position where they have to draft for need. And I want them to stop pouring most of their resources into the defense. I thought that was clear. Because being 2 deep in the DL has been more important to this team than building the first string OL or drafting the BPA.

I look at it similarly, but I think that recently it is more that they’re filling needs and looking for cost control. That often comes at the expense of taking the best prospects available (at a position that isn’t a big need) or taking chances on players with bigger upsides.That gets you Basham over Humphrey because you have Morse.

I forgot about Tenuta. So that’s one each in rounds 3, 5, 6 & 7. Plus Saffold. Whoop. Meanwhile the DL gets Von Miller, several other FAs and one pick each in rounds 1 & 2. Let’s discuss the difference there. Hit rates plummet as the draft goes on. Round one breakdown is about: 1/3 of players are good enough to stay with their team after their rookie deal, 1/3 are good enough to play out their rookie deal and then play elsewhere and 1/3 bust. Round two is about 25% same team, 35% different team, 40% bust. It slides down from there. By the time you get to day 3 you’re buying lottery tickets. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t have taken some shots, but it’s not the same thing as using premium picks.

I largely agree with your preferred direction moving forward. I just think the draft is about the long term and we’re seeing issues with our offense because it has taken a backseat to the defense during this regime. We’ve got an elite QB and WR1 plus good young players at LT and TE1. Beyond that we’ve got a good, but aging C with injury concerns and maybe a little hope at RB and RT, but no sure things there. If the Bills had put some real offensive talent in the pipeline we would not be looking at the problems we are starting to see today.

Honestly, I agree with all of that. I think the failures you list are another reason I’d like to see more resources allocated to the offense. I’m not saying that we should neglect the defense, but in this league and with our QB the offense should get half or a little more than half. To date it hasn’t been anywhere close to that.

Just because their execution failed doesn’t mean it was the correct strategy.

Prior to the draft I not only predicted that the Bills first round pick would be a CB, but I predicted that we’d trade up slightly to take that CB. The reason was that it was so incredibly obvious we’d have to draft one we would get jumped for our player if we didn’t move up. That is the epitome of drafting for need. I don’t know how you can talk about how important corners are in our division, but completely ignore how important better wide receivers would be. I’d think WR2 and WR3 would be worth investing more than day 3 picks. Meanwhile we’ve got two first round picks invested in CBs. The lines are even more unbalanced. Two firsts and a huge FA contract on the DL with two seconds backing them up. Meanwhile the OL has a second and a third on it - less than what’s backing up the DL. I do not begrudge using some resources on the defense - especially at CB and DL, but there’s no balance here. Josh Allen is by far this team’s biggest asset. My point is that we should invest in optimizing that asset. The fact that this is an offense driven league only make that more critical to the Bills success.

Point taken, although I don’t think I’d have KC’s quite that high. Philly probably had the best in the NFL tho. Maybe Cleveland was with them or better when healthy. And good point on the “elite” defenses.

I think aiming for an above average offensive line is the sweet spot. There’s very little difference between the impact of the 4th and 16th best OLs, but the cost is very different. So I’d like to see the Bills aim to field the 10th-12th best OL while finding a C of the future and maintaining good depth. That should leave enough resources to find another playmaker at WR and still have some leftover for a little defensive help.

First, I’d say that looking at the draft to solve short term needs is generally ineffective and leads to reaches and other mistakes. The Bills have made this mistake in the last couple of drafts with their early picks. I’m not saying that all of the players won’t work out, but they certainly painted themselves into a couple of corners. The draft should be for long term roster building and the deficiencies on offense show a lack of attention over the long term to those needs.

Seems like an offense that was more effective would’ve helped in two of the three games you referenced. The other one - KC last season - wasn’t a personnel issue, it was a coaching error. So an offense that could keep KC or Cincy’s offense off the field could’ve been the difference but in both games. I do not see how any team wins in today’s NFL by prioritizing defense over offense. I am not sure how anyone can equate hoping players with significant limitations and later round picks work out on offense versus throwing far more high draft picks and free agent dollars at the defense. As for Dorsey and his hiring, I agree that we should expect more out of the offensive scheme and play calling. That said, some more talent to work with is also needed. Dorsey and Allen were put in a spot where, compared to the defense, they were expected to do more with less. That was not exactly the way I’d have set up a rookie OC for success. And here’s the thing about that - as a first time OC getting his big break Dorsey was not in a position to make any demands when he took the job. A more experienced coach would’ve made demands as a condition of taking the jobs including improvements to offensive personnel. You should probably just reread what I wrote - more slowly.

I’ve mentioned this in other threads, but think it’s worth having a discussion about on its own. While it is easy to look at what could have been in previous drafts and even rightly point out alternate picks we wanted at the time, I think that this regime’s drafting has been solid overall. That’s more a function of how bad most drafts are for most teams than anything exceptional done by the Bills. Seriously, look it up. Every team misses a lot. But I don’t want to discuss that here. What I want to discuss is the focus on using so many high picks and other resources on the the defense at the expense of the offense. Defense: 2 firsts spent on CBs, a first at MLB, 2 firsts, 2 seconds a huge FA signing on the DL versus 1 first on a QB, a first traded for a WR, 2 seconds spent on the OL (one of which busted) and 1 second on a RB. To me it looks like the defensive success the Bills have had is directly due to the resources spent on it. If that’s what a team needs to do to find success, then it’s the talent and not the coaching. Te opportunity cost of using those resources on the offense is huge IMO. The deficiencies we see at OL and WR are because of what was spent on the defense. Imagine what the offense would look like if you flip the resource allocation - or just even it up. Today’s NFL is not a league where you win a SB by building a pristine defense and then using the leftovers to support your FQB. This has been my single greatest point of frustration with this Bills regime. IMO this has to change or the Bills are not going to get a championship with Allen. I think this is what Diggs alluded to when he talked about KC having an offensive HC.

Would absolutely love Smith-Njigba on this team. Perfect fit IMO. He could fall to the Bills - or close enough to go get - because he’s looked at as a “slot only WR”.

I think the fans who have primarily looked at the handful of highly productive games Davis has had tend to overvalue him. Or at least they did last off-season. Most of those fans now undervalue him because he didn’t sustain anything close to the level of production he had against KC in the AFCC game. The reality is that he’s very good at some aspects of the WR job and poor at others. Naturally he’s going to have some favorable matchups in some games where what he does well works. But he’s going to have a lot of games where he’s limited. Things were worse in that regard this past season. Even though he got more opportunities as a starter, defenses planned better for him and were able to limit his production. So we don’t have a stud WR2 in him, but he’s got a place in the NFL for sure. Unfortunately he’s not a guy I want to see the Bills pay to stick around. He’s an okay outside WR, but he shouldn’t be a team’s #2 receiving option - and I wouldn’t pay him anything close to Spotrac’s estimate.

I think the best case - and still realistic - scenario is: LT - Dawkins LG - Bates C - Morse plus a day 2 draft pick to take over in a year or two RG - FA like Nate Davis (4/$30M) RT - Brown plus competition like Jermaine Eluemunor (2/$8M)

Tag, for sure. Him playing on the tag is another matter entirely. He sat out the end of the season and playoffs, he’ll be happy to sit again. I see him pushing back and not signing the tag right away. He’ll say he wants traded to a team that will pay him if the Ravens won’t. Then he either gets traded or sits until right before the season starts. That would put the Ravens in a big bind as they will have a new OC installing a new offense.

I appreciate all the work you did on this. Lotta good stuff, but you’re going to be very surprised when Brissett gets a job as a starter this coming season. He was very a very efficient, albeit limited, QB. Likely he will get signed as a Bridge QB, but he could wind up being the best option for a team that is otherwise stuck with a Wentz or Darnold level QB. Edited to add: Cards just hired Drew Petzing, Browns QB coach, as their OC. He worked very well with Brissett. I expect him to be the QB in ‘Zona until Murray gets healthy enough to play again. Makes a ton of sense now.

That’s fair. But here’s my counter: When does McDermott, Frazier & Co. have to do something with less like the offense has had to? 2 firsts spent on CBs, a first at MLB, 2 firsts, 2 seconds a huge FA signing on the DL versus 1 first on a QB, a first traded for a WR, 2 seconds spent on the OL (one of which busted) and 1 second on a RB. My take is that defensive success the Bills have had is due directly to the resources spent on it. If that’s what a team needs to do to find success, then it’s the talent and not the coaching. The other side of that coin is the opportunity cost of using those resources on the offense. The deficiencies we see at OL and WR are because of what was spent on the defense. The job Daboll did to help this offense succeed should not be discounted. That was very much an uphill battle - even with Allen and Diggs - versus what the defensive side had to do. Today’s NFL is not a league where you win a SB by building a pristine defense and then using the leftovers to support your FQB. This has been my single greatest point of frustration with this Bills regime. My fear with Edmunds hitting FA is that this regime will pay whatever it takes to retain him because McDermott needs an MLB like him to run his defense. Or they’ll use another first round pick (or more with a trade up) to replace him.