GunnerBill

Monos and Dunne are buddies. No particularly surprising things here though and on a lot of the personnel takes I agree with him.

It is just negotiating tactic 101 now. I don't like it but I won't panic yet. I am totally with you tho. My line is probably $11-12m. More than that? Trade him. There is gonne be a good market for running backs after the success of last year's FAs and there are multiple teams with needs.

Something that just struck me on this.... I think Beane has a real strong motive for his own professional reputation to keep at least three of these guys. 2022 was his best draft since his first one. He found four guys outside round 1 who we are all talking about here as being worth at least considering for big money extensions. Take out 2022. Look at his draft record 2019-2024 with 2022 excluded. From the 5 drafts that remain he has Ed Oliver, Greg Rousseau, Dawson Knox, Spencer Brown and Tyler Bass. Okay maybe a Kincaid or a Torrence or a Coleman can still rebound. But without that 2022 class there are not a ton of starters on the Bills roster that he has drafted since 2018 and even fewer impact starters.

I agree that coming off the concussions Benford has probably gone from priority #1 to wait and see. I don't have any problem with the number for Benford. I think if healthy he is absolutely worth that number. But the concussions in the playoffs are a legit concern. If he is one hit away from being done going into 2025 I'm not committing big money to him. I'd do Bernard if that is really the price - $6.7m AAV (I think it will be more) and I'd do Cook at $10.2m AAV (but I think that will be more too). Shakir at $19.3m is a no from me.

I was higher on both McConkey and Worthy than I was on Coleman. Of the three I thought then, and think now, that Worthy is the best of the three as an outside receiver. So it isn't a defence of the Bills point at all for me. But you need outside receivers in the NFL and the Bills went into the draft with only Mack Hollins, I think they came out of the draft with only Mack Hollins basically too. And they ended up trading away a 3rd in mid season because of it. McConkey would not have fixed that and that is a major problem for Buffalo. If they were taking a receiver it should have been a guy who plays outside. I was in on the idea of a small trade up for BTJ. If it cost us a day 2 pick, so be it.

I mean ballparks are your guys thing...

Because I disagree with you. Inside in the NFL you can still influence with scheme. You can get Ladd McConkey 400 odd yards by matching him up on linebackers. You can shield a guard by using your centre to double guys. The reason there is and will always be a higher tarrif on people who play the outside positions in the NFL is because the extent to which you can influence those spots with scheme is more limited. There are points, normally high leverage ones too, in every game where your offensive tackles, edge rushers, boundary corners and outside receivers will be 1 on 1 and will just have to win that matchup. And that is why the value on those spots is and alwats will be higher. Agree McConkey is a stud. And I also agree Khalil Shakir shouldn't be influencing draft strategy. That wasn't my point in terms of the corner the Bills painted themselves into. It wasn't the existence of the slot guys they had that painted them into that corner. It was the non-existence of any viable outside players. And it led multiple times this season to problems in big spots, even after trading away a 3rd round pick. In week 4 a Ravens defender said publicly that their strategy was just stack the middle of the field because the Bills were no threat outside.

No you got an informed response and then said "no there is something else." There isn't. Shula was a Dorsey hire. He was never staying once Dorsey was gone.

That is utter insanity. But regardless. Rex hired a failed ex OC at Roman's request too in Chris Palmer. Even had Rex stayed in 2017, Palmer was gone. He was totally cut out of the game planning once Lynn took over.

Peterman. Hands down.

I have zero idea why the priest was fired. I mean as far as I'm concerned priest is a totally pointless made up job, but I have no idea why McDermott as a believer would fire one priest in favour of another. NFL coordinators hiring older offensive minds they have worked under before to be consultants though? Well I am familiar with that. It happens on a relatively regular basis in the NFL. And when the OC they come in with gets fired at the end of that seaon they go. It is standard operating practice. Why did McDermott hire Shula? Simple. Because Dorsey asked for him as a first time coordinator. A guy he trusted.

I just totted up and Draftek has 32/100 and PFF has 28. My board isn't yet advanced enough to count but I'd say my guy Matt is in the ballpark.

He would have been consulting on an offense that the Bills were no longer running. He was a crap OC himself. Consulting for another crap OC.

Nah. Dorsey wanted him here. He wasn't here when Daboll was OC. He was a Dorsey hire. Once Dorsey was gone he served no purpose.

Shula was a Dorsey guy. Simple as that.

Other than spending a 2nd I agree with this. I don't think Davis is near Cook's level personally. If you trade Cook you have to draft someone.

I don't think you can accuse Cook of not stepping up when it matters. I am not lobbying to pay him, but he was the Bills best player in the AFCCG. Don't disrespect that.

When the "trade Cook" thread happened last summer I said you are mad to trade a high end running back on a late 2nd round rookie deal while he is still cheap and has two years left but with a year to go the equation changes. Here we now are with a year to go. think you enter into discussions with his side but if you can see you are a distance apart, you absolutely explore what his trade market is. He won't get $20m on the open market so if we wait a year and he walks next year we'd probably be looking at best at a 4th round comp pick in the 2027 draft. If I can bring that pick forward two years and likely upgrade it to a 3rd (which I think is absolutely possible this spring give the last two seasons he had) then I am doing it if he is even thinking about a hold out.

I like it a lot as an idea for Pittsburgh. Makes way more sense than Aaron Rodgers. Don't understand why Jacksonville woule be interested though.

Meh I don't think he has ever been great in coverage. He had a career year generally in 2022 but otherwise he has been pretty mid IMO and struggles in coverage at the NFL level.

Probably get more wins too.

I think what sort of hampered the Bills a bit (not crying about it but it is just a reality) is just as they hit the point to do that on Allen roster 1.0 (coming out of the 2020 season and the AFCCG) the covid impact on the cap happened and the cap went down and suddenly a team like the Bills, loaded up and right on the precipice was suddenly having to use void years purely as a means of standing still i.e. keeping their own guys and remaining cap compliant. They then had a chance to take one big swing coming out of 2021 (whereas without the covid cap impact I think they could have taken at least 2 or 3) but they took it on Von and for reasons I won't rehearse again it hasn't worked out.

I mean I didn't like Coleman as an idea for the Bills because I think, like McConkey, his best fit in the NFL is as a slot receiver (different type of slot receiver but a slot receiver all the same). I understand the "they should just have drafted Ladd because he was better than the alternatives" argument but I'd only apply that rationale to premium positions personally. And to be a premium position player he'd need to be an outside receiver. And he isn't. He is a slot guy who can play some snaps for you outside. The fact that the Chargers, with the worst outside receiver situation in the entire league, kept Ladd primarily in the slot tells you all you need to know. And they used him less outside as the year went on. He had 4 targets lined up outside in the playoff game. That was only the second time he had more than 2 targets outside since week 8 (he had 0 or 1 six times from week 9 onward) and he still did most of his damage inside (149 of his 197 yards were v safeties, linebackers or the nickel). The Bills had backed themselves into a corner by that point because their only proven hold over was Shakir, who is a strict slot only, and their big FA acquisition was a guy in Samuel, who usage wise is very similar to Ladd - you can use him outside some but his best work is going to come in the slot. At that point the only guy on the roster who could play outside receiver on anything approaching a regular basis was Mack Hollins. What they got wrong was Keon's ability to do that (I think they got the Keon evaluation wrong generally tbh). But I don't regret them passing on McConkey. There were a ton of teams where he made sense - the Bills were not one of them.

Correct. Bills linebackers have to cover. Pratt couldn't cover his bar tab.

888 of his 1149 yards this year came inside vs slot corners, safeties or linebackers. Of those a staggering 451 yards came on 28 receptions from 31 targets when matched up on a linebacker. Ever likely his man coverage win % is so high. He is running routes against linebackers. It's a mismatch. Ladd can play on the boundary. He isn't Khalil Shakir who can't. He just isn't special on the boundary. He played 30% out there (and had about 23% of his production out there). The place where he is special is in the slot where you can use him as a mismatch piece against safeties, nickels and linebackers. I am not a hater on Ladd McConkey. I had a solid grade on him, I was definitely higher on him than I was on Keon Coleman put it that way. But anyone who thinks the Bills drafting him would have solved their boundary receiver issue is barking so far up the wrong tree they might as well be a cat.