GunnerBill

Rasul Douglas isn't close to prime Tre. Rasul Douglas is not an all pro player. We differ on how likely Tre is to get back, that's fair. I say his best two games were easily his last two when he looked like his old self again. Sure the whole D was firing at that point but Tre was outstanding. That Miami game is one if his best 4 or 5 games as a Bill. There is no way to keep Tre without paying him more money because if we release him now we don't owe him another cent. So any money we spend on him is money we wouldn't have to with a cut. But if what you are worried about is cap rather than cash then there is a way to do it that gets you the space you would save this year from cutting him and still leaves less dead money if we cut him next year than we would have now by cutting him this year. It comes down to two questions: 1) do you think Tre can get back to his best form? 2) do you believe his best form would still be the Bills best corner? My answers are yes and yes - easily! But if you answer either of those "no" then the right answer is to cut him. My entire point on Tre is there IS a way to keep him cap wise and the Bills have all the leverage in a re-negotiation. Your assertion than anything other than an outright cut is just fans in their feels is wrong IMO.

He wouldn't start the competition ahead of Bates. But the fact that at no point in 2023 were the Bills willing to open Alec Anderson a UDFA up to waivers and protected him with a spot on the 53 the entire year tells you something IMO. I think he was inactive every week (if he wasn't it was close) and at no point did they cut him even when they needed to make moves at other spots. I think they see him as a potential starter down the road. He was a college tackle, that's right. So was Mitch Morse.

I set out a possible structure the other week. At the moment cutting him NOW is $10m in dead cap for saving $6m in cap space. Letting him play this year on his current deal (a non-starter but stay with me for a second) and then cutting him next year is $4m dead cap hit in 2025. There is a pretty easy extension that you can do with Tre that gets you the same cap saving in 2024 as cutting him ($6m) but it would involve adding somewhere in the region of $3-4m to the dead cap hit in 2025 (taking the total dead cap after next year to $7-8m) if you cut him after this year. Of course if he returned to form in 2024 and we got the Tre from last year's Washington and Miami games back you'd have your best corner locked in two more years for modest cap hits of about $10m per season. The reason a deal is easily doable with Tre is because he isn't guaranteed a single extra penny from the Bills at this point. They are on the cap hook for $10.4m but that is money that in cash terms was paid a long time ago. He isn't guaranteed a bean. So the offer from Buffalo would be "here is a small amount of new money" (say about $8m) in the form of a signing bonus that we could account for over multiple years with 2 years left plus a dummy year or two "but in exchange we are slashing your base salary to basically the vet minimum to buy us cap relief." The question then becomes does Tre take that $8m in hand and figure his best chance to return to form is in the defense where he was an all pro and with an organisation that had supported him through one tricky rehab already or does he say "no, cut me and I'll take my chances of getting more than $8m in guaranteed new money on the market"? I take your other point - why bring him back if he won't start? That is fair. I just don't see a world where if we get the real Tre White back as we did for 2 games this year he isn't the best corner on the Bills. Rasul Douglas did a nice job when he came in. But he isn't close to what prime Tre is. Some maybe feel the way about the chances of seeing prime Tre again that I do about the chances of seeing a rebound from Von. Again - if you are in that boat you just cut him. But the Bills don't HAVE to cut him. There IS a re-negotiation that makes sense for both parties. But it only makes sense if you still believe Tre White can be this team's best corner. I am in that camp that does.

It is going to be in that range - $240 $245m or thereabouts.

Don't buy the premise that Lamar is guaranteed HoF. We have done the chat about why he was MVP and the rights and wrongs of that to death.

He is way too low on Legette. Otherwise he and I are relatively broadly aligned (at least on position ranking).

Nah Miller was signed day 1 of FA. It just didn't break as news during the two day legal tampering period. The news broke on actual day 1 of FA.

There are way better options than him IMO. If it came to it, sure, but I'd much prefer most of the other guys. The stories I have heard he is likely walking. Winfield won't hit the market. He is the best FA safety out there. The second best is Kamren Curl IMO. I'd love him. I'm hoping his reputation not being that big will keep him affordable but I don't know.

McDermott is the more powerful he is ultimately accountable for the successor failure of the Buffalo Bills football team. But I don't think he is directly accountable for individual draft decisions - that is Brandon Beane.

Rest assured I am not judging him against those other guys in terms of success in the elite Allen era - so 2020 onwards. I think 2017-2019 the comparison for the Bills was against what had gone before but since Allen's 3rd year when he blossomed into a top tier guy that is not the bar. The bar is much higher. I just don't think - with the one notable exception in 2021 that Sean McDermott is the reason the Bills haven't reached that bar.

I have clarified this for you before - Brandon Beane runs the draft. He is in charge of personnel. I have had that confirmed by people who are in the building too. What I do think though is that Sean McDermott is of the two the more powerful personality in the building. It is ultimately his show. If he wanted Beane fired he'd get it. If he wanted to veto a particular draft pick I think he'd have the power to do that. But the reality is that isn't how they operate. He has total faith in Beane to run the personnel side and that is how it works. They collaborate pretty closely and I know McDermott sits in on the meetings where they set their final board prior to the draft. But in terms of running the draft and making the picks it is Brandon's call. If they are close between two players he will ask Sean, he will ask Brian Gaine and Terrence Gray but he ultimately makes the decision. I was told the guy who actually had the most influence on the draft beyond Beane was actually Joe Schoen while he was here not Sean McDermott. And I think the fact that the Bills drafting patterns so closely reflect the Panthers drafting patterns during the 10 years Beane was in senior front office roles there rather reinforce the view that the draft strategy the Bills execute is Brandon Beane's strategy. I don't think the Bills have spent enough draft capital on receiver. But Beane grew up in a Panthers organisation that was famous for undervaluing wide receiver in his time there. Four day 1 or 2 picks on the position in 10 drafts in Carolina. Zero in 6 drafts here. This is not a coincidence.

I would rank NFC guys first too. But of the AFC guys I still think it is Josh Allen.

I certainly haven't gone deep into any of the late round guys but Carter Bradley and Joe Milton are the two toolsy guys later on I'm interested in. That's the kind of guy I'm interested in the Bills taking a shot rather than a kind of physically limited college game manager. No more Jake Fromm types.

In which case I take it back.... we do have that spectrum the same way around. I'm not sure I quite agree with top 10 but Baker has more ability than Brock IMO. The thing that has held Baker back is Baker. If he has truly humbled himself and keeps his head down in Tampa rather than letting his relative success this year re-inflate his ego he can be a long term 5-10 year starter for the Buccs.

Yea, but we are not drafting any of the guys @NeverOutNick has listed here. They are gone by the 3rd absolute latest.

I'm interested on who is where on this scale..... because I think I might not be imagining them where you intend them to be.

Then stick to Madden.

Mac still wouldn't be a franchise QB. Could he be a serviceable lower grade starter? Sure. That's possible.

The 2022 playoff game here I totally throw out. I don't think he schooled McDermott. I just think the Bills did not turn up at all. I don't think Vince Lombardi as Head Coach with Belichick as DC and Walsh as OC would have won that game for the Bills that day. The players just looked done to my eye. They played with zero energy the whole game and Josh Allen looked like a zombie. I throw that out. It wasn't a coaching loss. It was a total team loss. It was over from the first drives on each side. It is the only game the Bills have lost by more than a single score since November 2021. Sure Taylor had a great win in KC in a playoff game. I don't take that away from him at all. But that was a game that went to overtime that came down to a play here and a play there and went the Bengals way. I see Taylor coach poorly way too often in regular season games. Their own fans will tell you he isn't that much cop as a playcaller and basically gets bailed out by having Joe Burrow, Ja'marr Chase and Tee Higgins. I don't think the Bills are incapable of beating the Chiefs in the playoffs. We have beaten the Chiefs twice in the last two years where it has been a play here or a play there that has gone our way. In the post-season those plays have gone their way. I don't think that is a reflection of coaching (with the 13 second exception). The Bills this year were right were they needed to be in that game despite all their injuries on defense and just couldn't finish. If people want to take the "he should have been fired after 13 seconds" position I understand it, don't agree, but understand. If he'd have missed the playoffs this season I'd have fired him - that is fireable in my book when you have Josh Allen. But losing by a field goal to Mahomes and Reid in the playoffs isn't fireable and certainly isn't a reflection on who he is as a coach. If he starts losing playoff games where he has a clear Quarterback advantage I'll start calling for him to be fired, I assure you. If he starts missing the playoffs, likewise. Equally if it gets back to "actually we are getting blown out by Mahomes" then fine, move on. But losing a game that could have gone either way and where we were right there... no. That doesn't tell me we have the wrong coach.

I don't think Taylor is a better coach than McDermott. Nor do I think it is obvious that Dan Campbell is. He has done an excellent job turning around the Lions. McDermott did an excellent job turning around the Bills. But the next step is to turn that into winning. I know the answer will come back "but McDermott has Josh Allen!" yes.... but he keeps losing to Patrick Mahomes. I'll repeat again if McDermott was losing to bums in the playoffs it would be a different matter. I'd be where a lot of you guys are. To be honest if he had lost x3 in the playoffs to Joe Burrow and Zac Tayor and x1 to Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid I'd be there too. But he keeps losing to a dynasty and a QB who is going to be in the GOAT conversation. Our last 4 games against Kansas City have gone down to the final drive and we are 2-2. Sadly they have won the two that mattered most. McDermott is to blame for 13 seconds. There is no question there and some can't get past that, which I understand, but don't agree with. Otherwise I think we just have to keep banging on the door and one of those tight playoff meetings will go our way.

I agree with you re. the trade. Of course if they knew for definite what JJ was going to be they'd have picked him. But he was not a sure thing. He was a slot receiver at LSU being projected as a wideout in the NFL. That is why he went where he did and not in the top 10 and the Bills need at the time was absolutely for a sure thing to help elevate Josh. Trade that worked for both. On the misuse of Josh some of it is Josh himself though. He has admitted, and it is definitely true when you watch him, that he plays better when the ball is in his hands. I don't think you can ask Josh to just "manage a game" and be a distributor. That isn't when he plays his best. Of course they need to put better weapons around him, no question about that, but I don't think you will ever turn Josh into a cerebral guy who just gets the ball to his playmakers. He is always going to bail pockets too early some times looking for the big play, run when it isn't the wisest decision, hurdle defenders when he could slide etc. I think it is just who he is.

He worked under McDermott who ran the cover 3 (although slightly different variant of it) in Carolina. But agree when he has run defenses as a coordinator he has been a nickel base, blitz heavy guy. Which isn't really what the 49ers have run previously.

Traded down twice before he picked James Cook in the 2nd too. Think that is it. End of the 2nd in 2022 and then day 3 trade backs last year. The 2022 trade backs he pretty nuch admitted they had no second round grades left so were into a bunch of guys at the top of their 3rd round board. Last year I don't know, but I suspect, they had emptied their entire board out so every time someone called they said yes and if nobody called they were picking guys they'd marked up as potential priority free agents. I have said before (though I don't know this it is just a feeling based on how they operate and how they have drafted) that they are one of the teams working with a smaller draft board. Not Belichickian 80 to 90 players maybe but certainly not far into three figures.

Yea I am still there on Nix. I can't unsee everything I have seen. Just looking at his Oregon career I'd say he has a high floor even if not the highest ceiling. But I have seen his floor. And it freaking stinks. I dunno. I think he is scheme over substance. I haven't dug properly into the film but that's where I start with him.

No he didn't. His defense stopped Mahomes multiple times while Kyle's offense was stuck in neutral failing to remember they had Christian effing McCaffrey to hand it to. Then the special teams screwed up and handed the Chiefs a score. I am not a huge Steve Wilkes fan. I didn't like that hire to start with. But his defense was not the problem on Sunday.