sven233

With the lack of draft capital, moving up more than a couple of spots is going to be tough. I suppose you could use a player like Oliver to sweeten the pot a bit if you don't have plans to re-sign him, but trying to move up 10+ spots with the lack of draft picks we have this year is unlikely.

Terrible draft. I mean, just to tie this in with the Hopkins threads, this is another reason if I'm Beane, I am doing everything I can to pull off the trade for Hopkins. This WR class is well below average and there isn't a single guy that will come in this year and affect our offense the way he will if he stays healthy. Not only will this allow us to fix the WR position for the next couple years, but it kicks the can down the road until next year when we will need to restock the WR position. God willing, it will be a much better WR class. It should be. This also allows us to draft the best players available that potentially will have more of an impact on our team this season. (And for the record.....I like Saldiveri but I think he might be able to be had in the 4th)

That may be what they want (if it is, the asking price has already dropped a bit from where it was several weeks ago if the reports are true), but that probably won't be the final price. I've thought all along a 3rd (and maybe a late rounder) gets the deal done as long as they eat some of the contract. If I'm Beane, I find a way to get this done. Yes, picks are important, but they are meant to find impact players for our team. No matter who we draft this year in rounds 3 or later, they won't have near the impact that Hopkins would for us over the next couple of seasons. Heck, depending on who we take in the 1st round, they may not have nearly the effect that Hopkins would on our team. He immediately takes our WR corps from slightly above average to one of the best in the league if everyone stays healthy. No WR in this draft will do that. No other player in the entire draft can make that happen, including the top WRs there. So yeah.....find a way to get this done for a 3rd or later, still be able to draft the best players available with your first 2 picks and this draft will be a success.

If Jim wanted to be petty, all he would have to say is that the only titles Shady has are from games he was benched for and didn't even play a snap in. Regardless, this is all stupid. The argument has nothing to do with Super Bowls or whatever each guy has or doesn't have. This was about whether the Bills need a top flight RB or not. We don't. This is a passing league and pass catching weapons are where it's at. Now, does the prospect of having a star RB running against light boxes have intrigue? Of course it does, but I think the guys we have here can manage that just fine if we get better blocking up front. Better blocking up front opens everything up in both the pass and running games. That's why we all wish our front office took it more seriously than they have shown in the past. Improve the o-line and the backs we have on the roster will be more than good enough to get the job done for the amount of time I want to spend running the ball.

God help us all if this drags out and becomes a draft week trade. I can definitely see that happening.

The longer this has gone on, the less likely I feel this is to happen. Things were red hot a couple days ago and there really hasn't been much new since. Sure, a couple of reporters have picked up on the things that were happening and have made comments, but in terms of new information, there hasn't been anything in quite a while now. I'm not saying it's all a bunch of crap or that there isn't truth to the story, but I am thinking a few things happen, things got overblown, and it's just taken on a life of its own at this point. My guess....the Bills have made an offer. It's a decent one and the Cards haven't said no, but they haven't said yes either. I think they are looking for more, but do respect the offer on the table. From there, it's about making the money work. I am sure the Bills offer includes the Cards retaining some salary which, in a perfect world for them, they wouldn't have to do. So, while I think we're in on this whole thing, it might be a standing offer at this point and the Cards are going to want to drag it out as long as possible to see if they can get more. Nothing may change until the week of the draft. It's frustrating for us fans because we just don't know what's going on. We all know how big getting a player like this and slotting him in across from Diggs would be. Our offense would immediately become much more dangerous. It's an arms race in the AFC and we're not exactly winning it right now. But you get a guy like Hopkins and you immediately back among the elite in terms of weapons. I am actually encouraged that Beane and company seem to recognize this. But if Hopkins ends up getting traded to someone else for very moderate compensation, especially if it is a team we're going to have to go through, it's not going to be a good look for Beane. I get not wanting to mortgage the future. I really do. But this city just wants one. Take your swings while you can. You find a way to get that 1 Super Bowl, I promise you fans aren't going to rebel if we have to tear it down in a few years. And being competitive year after year is fine and all, but none of us want to be the team that is good enough to be around near the end but never take those big swings once in a while to really go for it. I guess we'll see what happens. I admit I was really excited.......more than I should have been over the last couple days. But with nothing new coming out recently, my expectations have settled a bit.

From everything I have heard, it's been "Spring" all along. Haven't heard that change once yet.

Decent back, but lacks that breakaway speed which will always keep him at slightly above average. As a rule, you shouldn't pay big money to backs to begin with no matter how good they are. While I like Motor just fine, the fact is he's replaceable just like most backs in this league.

Most everyone on this board is going to say Fletcher for sure. The thing is, I don't think we have seen Edmunds in his prime yet. He had a good year last year, but it still seems like there is more there. Will he ever tap into that? I don't know. But I am not sure we can answer this question yet because I am not sure we have seen Edmunds' ceiling.

When you have a defensive minded coach that has the reputation that McDermott has, it should be expected that you get a little extra boost with scheme and coaching. Obviously talent and players are important, but when you specialize on that side of the ball, you should not need top payed players at every position to make your defense work. To this point, I think more has been invested into players, both money and picks, on the defensive side of the ball than should have been necessary to put a respectable defense on the field. I think the organization has the right idea on offense. It's a big play, passing league and that's what they've been trying to do scheme wise which is great, but with so much invested on the defensive side of the ball, they just haven't had the horses on offense to execute the way they need to. So it's time to shift some focus to the offense and give the scheme they want to run a shot to do so. That starts up front on the line and making sure Allen doesn't have a dude in his face a split second after the snap. Hard to push the ball down the field when you're constantly just trying to avoid garbage in the backfield and trying to read a defense at the same time. So get some real lineman in here and give Allen a chance to read what's actually going on. Then, of course, get him more receiving help. We need speed and guys that can actually hold onto the ball. Right now Diggs is the only player besides Allen that defenses have to fear. If you can't add at least another one or two guys on offense that defenses actually respect, then it will remain difficult to move the ball consistently. Yes, we had a good scoring offense last season statistically. But a lot of that was because we have a freakshow at QB that can cover up for so many other mistakes. It's time to make Allen's job easier. That can be done by letting some of the higher priced defensive players walk and investing more resources into the offense while hoping your defensive guru coach can make up for some of the lack of superstars on defense and put a solid defense on the field regardless.

Yeah.....this game made 2 things perfectly clear about what we are missing in order to win the Super Bowl. The first is the fact that both of these offensive lines controlled this entire game. Both teams dictated up front and both defensive lines were non-factors in the game. We have invested so much into our defensive line and it was proven tonight that no matter how good your defensive line is, if you have a top offensive line, you can do everything you need to do on offense to move the ball and score. These QBs were barely rushed tonight, let alone touched, and the offenses did whatever they wanted. The QBs just stood back there and made the plays they wanted to make and they consistently got the push they needed up front when they did run the ball. Way too many times I caught myself thinking about how Allen has a guy in his face immediately after the snap and has to go into superman mode just to try and make a play work. Tonight proved just how valuable the guys up front are.....both teams showed it. And the second thing was obvious as well. Coaching. Both offensive staffs, particularly Reid, showed what scheming and adjustments are all about. Both of these defenses are arguably better than ours, especially in big games, but Reid was getting guys running wide open, especially in close. We always joke that us guys in the parking lot throwing the football at a tailgate could make some of these throws. While obviously a lot of that is hyperbole, but tonight I actually think many of us could have thrown those TDs that Mahomes threw. I mean, there wasn't a defender anywhere near those WRs. That's scheme. That's coaching. We used to get a few like that with Daboll, but this season everything was like pulling teeth. Nothing was easy. But yeah. The game was good (up until that terrible PI call), but the differences between those teams and ours were VERY obvious tonight. We have a lot of work to do on the offensive line this off season. At the bare minimum, we need 2 new guards and a tackle. We need to get some real players up front and not just the turnstiles we have. If you have the stomach for it, just go back and watch a little bit of the Bengals game. It won't take you long to see Allen get pressured immediately after the snap because someone on the line basically just misses their blocks. Happened a ton. As for coaching, there really isn't much we can do except pray that Dorsey has a light bulb go off because these offenses we saw tonight are schemed night and day better than what we were throwing on the field, especially the second half of the season.

The thing is, our defense is very much a player-based defense. It isn't about the X's and O's. Without getting into explicit detail as to what our scheme is and how we play defense, I'll try and break it down into an easy way to understand it. It is a very basic defense overall, but talent, particularly on the back end with White, Hyde, and Poyer executing at a high level makes what we do on defense possible. The idea is to use great athletes to cover a lot of ground in hopes that we can get to the QB with 4 and force the other team into mistakes. And when we have a pass rush, and are facing average to below average QBs and talent, the system we run can excel. And during the regular season, we see a lot of teams like that and our defense can put up great numbers more often than not. The problem is, when you get to the playoffs, the players on the other teams we play are just as good, or at least pretty close to us talent wise. And the QBs we play are, for the most part, very good to elite. You can't get away with the same stuff against really good teams as you can against those with lesser talent, especially if you can't get the the QB. In the last few years when we have been in the Playoffs, we can't get to the QB at all. Not even close. And, when that's the case, the weapons these other teams have are going to get open against our zone defense that inherently has holes and weak spots in it. Great players are going to find the soft spots and make plays no matter how good the back end plays because QBs have all the time in the world to sit back and make the right decisions as they already know where the defense will be vulnerable if given enough time. There is no real change in scheme from week to week, and teams know where the weaknesses are in this defense if there is no pressure on the QB. If there was a consistent pass rush, there is no doubt the system can be effective because it does take away a lot of initial reads and makes it look like the entire field is covered at times, but the longer plays go, the more weak spots appear. Unfortunately for us, in the biggest games the last few seasons, we have been picked apart by good QBs because they never got touched. Von was supposed to be the piece of the puzzle to make sure we finally got that consistent pressure, but he was watching from the sideline injured and nobody stepped up to take his place and dominate. So, what do we do? Hope everyone stays healthy this year and run it back with a simple and potentially solid defense that the players already know like the back of their hands hoping we get that pass rush in the Playoffs next year or do we go in a completely different direction where the scheme changes week to week based on opponent and maybe make a couple of mistakes here and there? I know, personally, I am ready to see something different that doesn't count on the line getting to the QB in 2.5 seconds or less to be successful. Also, seeing a defense that doesn't play their DBs 15 yards off the LOS when blitzing on 3rd and short would be a nice change of pace as well. I am ready to start scheming up ways to slow down what offenses like to do rather than just try to be fundamentally sound and perfect using the same defensive scheme week in and week out.

Paying Brady under the table so they only had him on the books for about half, or less, than what he should have been on the books for certainly helped a lot. Cheating (in a bunch of different ways, probably in a lot of ways that weren't even discovered yet) had a bunch to do with it as well. Throw all that on the fact that Brady was good anyway, and boom......dynasty.

We have a lot of holes to fill on this team, but if done right through the Draft, much of it can be done. The first thing we need to do is identify our "Justin Jefferson" / "AJ Brown" / "Davante Adams", etc and get them at #27. There are a lot of WRs in this and every class with talent and preferably we find someone with some speed. Obviously a combination of size and speed would be great, but at the end of the round, you have to do your research and make sure you get it right. There are plenty of star WRs in this league that have been drafted in the bottom of Round 1 or even in Round 2. Find one and draft him. From there, luckily Guards are not considered a premium position and many of the best ones in drafts don't even come off the board until the 2nd and 3rd rounds anyway. So, get a couple of them in that area. Getting a couple of Guards that play physical with some nastiness to them would go a long way towards improving this line. Fixing the RT position will be tough to do in the draft because of all the other needs, but based on Beane's comments, I am not sure they view that as quite a necessity as many of us perceive it to be. We can't fix everything, but if you can get a quality LG in the draft and put him in between Dawkins and Morse, I think you will start to see those guys immediately start to play better as well. Our "Pro Bowler" Saffold was so bad most of the time, I think those guys suffered a bit trying to make up for his errors. And while I don't think Brown is great, I think the same thing can be said if we can put a true road grader in at RG as well. Eventually, Bates might be able to take over for Morse at C whether it be this year or next. So, while not perfect by any means, getting a true #2 and a couple of quality lineman in the first 4 rounds is imperative. Then, it us up to Beane to find some nastiness up front on the defensive line. Right now, we have a bunch of athletes, but none of them have that edge to them that I want my DTs to have. Jones was very good for us this season and we really missed him against the Bengals. But we need someone else in there that brings that nasty fight on the inside. Absolutely nailing the draft takes a lot of burden off of the lack of cap space. There are plenty of things that can be done with current contracts to create space, but it is time to start seeing some major impact from drafted players instead of just getting contributions. We need to draft some stars instead of just role players.

This defensive system relies on getting pressure on the QB. If the QB is unaffected, there is no scheme on the back-end to make things difficult on the QB and the good ones will already know where the back-end is vulnerable. It's good enough to slow down bad teams, and there are a lot of average to below average teams that you play in the regular season to boost your stats and make the defense look better than it is. But in the Playoffs, you need to beat the best of the best all the way through and that is why we have failed on defense the last several times in the Playoffs. Good QBs can beat this system when you don't get consistent pressure and even with all of the investments we have made up front over the last few years, the pass rush has not created pressure in the Playoffs at all and that is the main factor why they can't get stops.

If it's me, I'm telling Benford at his exit interview to be ready to take snaps at FS in training camp. I've seen enough of Elam to feel comfortable with him coming back next season and immediately slotting in as a full time starter opposite Tre. Look....I love Poyer and everything he gave to this team as we all do, but there is no way I am signing him to a big contract at his age. We need to make tough decisions in order to save on cap space and I think Benford could fill the void at S admirably. In his snaps throughout the first part of the season, he showed that he's smart, can cover fairly well, and is a willing tackler even if he's a bit undersized and slower than the typical CB. I think he has enough talent to see playing time, but I don't need him rotating with Elam. This leaves you with Tre, Elam, Johnson, Hyde and Benford as your starting secondary with Jackson slotted in as your primary backup at CB. You can't have all stars at every position, especially with the cap situation we will be facing, so you have to get creative in spots. I think Benford is smart enough and has enough physical tools to make a switch to safety work. Actually thought that when he was drafted as well, but Beane said he wanted to try him at CB first. I think he did just fine there in his first year, but I think he can make a fine NFL safety. Then, we'll have to find a replacement for Hyde most likely after next season. Hyde will be good for Benford to play off of and learn the position from this year for sure, though.

Until I see something about Frazier being out officially, I am not even going to give this another though. McDermott loves the guy and I have a hard time believing they are going to push him out the door. The guy I wanted was just hired by the Browns anyway. But yeah......I'll have to see it to believe it in regards to Frazier being gone before I think about this too much.

It's one advantage other sports have......one bad day doesn't end your season. But this is the NFL.....and the game is much more violent and you can't simply add games onto the schedule to make it a double elimination tournament. I mean, I suppose you could, but you would have to knock off like 4 games from the regular season to do it. You can't ask players to potentially play 4+ more games. This sport is hard enough on the body as it is.

This team wins 3-5 games this year without Allen at QB.

The coaching staff isn't great. They were out game planned and out coached. It has been proven over the last few seasons that this coaching staff isn't good enough, particularly on defense against good teams.

Diggs is great. He's a competitor and wants to win. He's fiery. He's one of the best WRs in the league, but our coaching staff can't find ways to get him the ball. You watch all these other teams with either #1 WRs or dominant TEs, etc. and you constantly watch them being schemed wide open with play designs. Daboll did this fairly well. He was able to design plays to get certain guys the ball, but that didn't happen at all this season. Some of it is on Allen. Some of it is on the line putting Allen under immediate pressure. A lot of it is on coaching and the lack of creativity.

Terrible coaching Terrible O-Line No true #2 WR No pass rush No interior D All of this focus and high draft picks spent on the defensive line who hasn't even had a sniff of the QB today against a back up filled offensive line. We are trying to play a defensive style that needs pressure on the QB to succeed and we are routinely getting blown off the ball. Look, as long as we have 17, we will be in the hunt to win a championship. We can easily be right back here in the same position 365 days from now with another opportunity, but man.......we have a lot of holes to fill and we could really use a philosophical change on how to play defense. This Frazier/McDermott scheme doesn't instill fear into anyone and while they can get away with playing this style against bad teams, they can't against good ones. There will be a lot of time to discuss things this off season, but my plans have certainly changed with how I am handling certain players. If it's me, Poyer, Oliver, and even Edmunds (I like him more than most people do) can go. No need to tie up big money in these players. While they may be better than those that end up replacing them, it won't be dramatic enough to justify the price difference and we're going to need the cap space to upgrade other spots. Go get a real #2 WR. Diggs is great and Shakir has shown enough promise to keep. Davis is fine to be on the team until he needs a new contract. Everyone else can go and we need to give Allen some real weapons with some speed. And, for the love of God, get some real offensive linemen in here. We have 2 good lineman in Dawkins and Morse, but the rest are barely backup level right now. Frazier has to be gone and a new system needs to be in place before next season. Beane is on the spot and there is a lot of work to do. But many things that need to be done are obvious. While we won't exactly be underdogs necessarily next season, we won't be favorites either. It's going to be back to Buffalo vs The World and that's the way it should be.

Coaching has gotten this team eliminated from the Playoffs the last few seasons. It is well on its way to doing it again.

Just about there now....

This is usually where the defense folds. Finally get something going only to have the defense give up points on the next drive.