MR8

I understand you need things to be simplified so I'll just put it this way, neither of those two guys is going to be playing here next year on those contracts. They will either be renegotiated or cut. If they are cut, and you signed Henry, you're looking at Henry's contract plus the dead cap so it's actually even more. Because I'm not sure if you're aware of this you can't just cut people for nothing. Based on your posting you seem to think there are no consequences to cutting players and signing new ones. Renegotiating both of those guys will open up cap space, while adding minimal issues down the road, and you get two players instead of just one. If you renegotiate them to more team friendly deals, you still have the ability to go out and sign other free agents, however it is unlikely you would be able to sign Henry as, again, you'd be carrying their salaries and then also have to add his.

Zeke got 1 year $3M to "prove it" in NE, and he had gone over 1,000 yards in 3 of his previous 5 seasons prior to that deal. He was healthy every game and lost his starting spot despite a huge contract. Henry has been over 1,000 yards 4 times in 5 years with over 1500 in 3 of those 4, and 2000 in 2020. 2021 was his only sub-1000 yard year in those 5, and he had 937, but did so in just 8 games. Henry will want starter money, and if Zeke's deal is the baseline for a vet RB looking to hang on, Henry will get at min that, my guess is closer to $7M with $4.5-ish guaranteed. For the Bills this is an absurd luxury. Hard pass

Trades for impactful players are rare, it's more likely we sign 2nd and third tier FAs, and then use our extra draft assets to move up here and there in the draft to target guys who for our scheme and are at positions of need rather than trading for NFL players. I'd love to see some action, but Beane's history doesn't support that kind of action.

How do you figure he's a "much better impact"? The guy has seen serious decline year over year over year in his yards per carry totals. Here in Buffalo he would not be a bell cow, he'd be a change of pace back but for more money than is warranted for that... Additionally Cook is just coming into his own, do you really want to take him off the field? He's more dynamic, more explosive, has better hands, and at this point in his career is just the better running back. Sure between the tacklers he's not the best of the two, but overall I would rather him be on the field as many snaps as possible. Which means if you're spending our limited free agent money on a guy who's going to want to be on the field at least 50% of the time, it's a bad expenditure.

It's comments like this that I don't understand, yes of course we need more than one guy, but why act like advocating for this specific guy is a bad thing? Your post is dismissive, but it's not like you saying this is the only thing they should do. I think we are all on board with the bills drafting a wide receiver in the first and or second round. Getting somebody like Born as but it's not like you saying this is the only thing they should do. I think we are all on board with the bills drafting a wide receiver in the first and or second round. Getting somebody like Bourne as well wouldbe adding 2+ guys in this scenario. The oversimplification by saying "we need more than 1"... Well, I guess we shouldn't discuss any why does he have a free agents because we need more than one therefore we are incapable of discussing any individual player... It's just stupid...k

I think this looks right, but the bigger problem here is if you trade digs post June first, what do you replace him with? You can't designate a player as a post June first trade, you have to actually trade him after June 1st. Unlike if you're cutting somebody you can designate them. This means you're trading away your number one receiver after the draft and all of the worthwhile free agents have signed. If this is the course the bills choose to take, you're freeing up some cap space this year you're taking a huge chunk of cap space away next year, and you're losing stuff on digs. The assets you will get back are all in 2025 and beyond. You have to already have a solution for number one wide receiver, number two wide receiver, and depth across that position group on the roster before you make that move. Honestly it's a very tricky proposition with the salary cap situation you're finding yourself in already. Unless they draft wide receivers in like the first second and fourth rounds, I just don't see how you could possibly get on number one and a number two WR added to the roster and make digs expendable.

They're $51M over as of now. Lots of moves to work on that but as of now they're 2nd worst in cap space in th NFL, actually virtually tied with Miami. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/cap/

Depends what Detroit's home schedule looks like, but the Super Bowl matchup everybody wanted this year was the bills and the Lions. That's a storyline I could see them wanting to talk about. How both teams had a shot at it, neither has won a Super Bowl, the NFL is all about storylines even if they're a stretch. You could be right, but the bills are still pretty solid ticket especially with Josh Allen tearing it up on Thanksgiving more than once. I mean what would fans rather watch, Detroit and the Bears yet again, or Detroit vs Bills and the explosive potential of that kind of a game?

The opponents are set, the schedule comes out in May Who else thinks the Bills will be playing on Thanksgiving in Detroit next year??

The saints offense was sneakily better than I expected in 2023... 14th overall in yards with 337 (Bills were 4th with 34/74.5) 11th overall in passing yards with 234.7 (Bills were 8th with 244.4 which dropped to an ugly 187.5 in the playoffs) Saints also had 28 passing TDs, the Bills had 29 Saints were 9th in total offensive TDs with 44 (Bills were 6th with 54) The stats are better than I expected from watching the games I watched. I agree with the people who keep saying some of this matter is less because he's not the one calling plays. But I think it does speak to his overall football knowledge and abilities that they're offense was better than you would anticipate from their record. QB coaches install the offense and work with the QB more hands on to break down film, read what the D is giving, and decide what to do in those looks. Carr ain't Josh, and they had a pretty competent offense with Curry's hands helping steer.

This is an interesting hire and definitely brings a different perspective to the QB room and offense. Honeslty I'm not impressed with the passing game or even QB play in NO under him, but I'm willing to go on faith that this could be good for Josh's development by putting someone with a very different perspective in there. It's not like he hasn't been a QB coach, and he has played in and coached in several different Offensive schems, so I think he'll bring some great knowledge and hopefully some wrinkles for Joe Brady to incorporate. QB coach, especially on teams like Buffalo, LAR, KC, etc. Are the waiting spot for OC, and he got calls for that in 2021. He was offered to be retained in NO but take a demotion to WR coach, so I get him taking this move instead. For Buffalo, it's a diversification move of the staffing by way of skill set and knowledge base. While his title is QB coach, I think this is going to be a role where he will work with Brady to develop a unique passing attack to maximize our assets (whatever they happen to be post FA and Draft.) Anyone who isn't happy needs to remember that estsblished QB coaches are already OCs in waiting and lateral moves are hard, so plucking a guy from a "lower position" or who is not under contract is the only move. I'm sure there are "I wanted x,y,z" people out there, but I'm not sure if there is a sure fire better option out there. All in all, it's intriguing... Could go well, may be ineffective and we're looking for a QB coach in 2025.

Honestly for the "smaller" companies like Disney (who owns ESPN & 20th Century Fox's Portfolio and has had a long standing partnership with them), and Warner Bros. Discovery, both are small fish in the pond, but all of them are competing for the same viewers, so combining is smart. They make it sound like this is groundbreaking, but this is literally what Disney orchestrated 15 years ago when they combined with then NBC, CBS, and Fox to create Hulu. It was a conglomerate content service to battle Netflix. It ended up getting ruined by everybody creating their own version of a streaming platform rather than strength in numbers and sharing the revenue. With sports however, the content is exorbitantly expensive because of the contracts with the league, and on top of that you have all of the on-air personalities and the battling for ratings. Housing everything streaming wise under one banner allows you to eventually cut your costs and increase revenue numbers with something that is inherently difficult to make money on. ESPN for a very long time was the only part of Disney's umbrella that wasn't making money. Disney Plus and they're streaming has been a disaster making both of them not profitable. But at the end of the day ESPN because of all of the on-air personalities, contracts with so many various leagues, college sports, semi-pro sports, all of that content that they need to pay for has made it a cost center rather than a revenue generator. ESPN has been unofficially and officially for sale for a very long time but nobody wants it because it doesn't make money. This is a very "Bob Iger" solution... He did it before and Hulu was great back then, this is a great natural partnership for these companies.

Yes, as long as Josh is a Buffalo Bill, our window is open. It's no different than GB with Rodgers, Indy with Manning, etc... Will there be down years? Absolutely! Will we make the playoffs every year? Hopefully but things happen. Will we win the division every year? No, probably not.... But is the window open? YES! Lots of things contributed to us not getting to the big game this year, and in years past, just like 30 other teams... But when you have a supremely talented top 3 NFL QB, you're always in the conversation. The bigger question is can they retool the roster this year without breaking out back in future years, while still putting players around Josh to remain atop the division? I'd say I Doubt it, but Miami is in Cap hell too and their foundation isn't as solid as ours... The Jests, I mean how good are they really with Rodgers? We don't know... NE...well... NVM about NE. In 2024, no matter what we should be a WC contention team, and If Miami steps back like we will, were still the team to beat inth East.... The goal is to make it to the tournament, after that all beats are off! But to recap, our "core": Josh, Diggs, Cook, Kincaid, Shakir, the Online, Milano, Oliver Bernard, Douglas, Johnson... Those are a solid foundation and make us top 7 in the AFC discussion regardless. The question for 24 is how good can we be based on the build around these guys and not screw us in years to come. Can we get lucky where our new pieces out perform their salaries/draft statuses and help Josh carry this team? We'll see... But with Josh you ALWAYS have a shot...

Correct, I miss spoke, federal funding for projects cannot be invested, federal grants to non-profits can be but interest earned can only be kept up to $500... That was the point, demanding interest is sketchy at best, but him agreeing to pay it is a PR move. I mean I can say "snorkel" is the short hand for scuba diving ... Doesn't make it correct.

This isn't accurate, he didn't embezzle it, that would imply that he kept it. But he didn't knowingly redirected to the University of Southern Mississippi to help build a volleyball stadium rather than a being used for welfare. Which is also absolutely gross... All that said, it seems like nobody actually read this article... In this, it states after the issue in 2017 and it coming to light, Favre repaid all $1.1M, $500K 2020 and $600K in 2021... But now the accusation is he owes $729,790 in interest. Which is laughable honeslty that he'd owe 66% interest. It even called it a loan... Which it wasn't. It was a clear misappropriation of government funds, which legislators should also be held accountable for. On top of that, it's illegal to earn interest on Federal money as it is earmarked for expenditure or return only. If a state gets $10M in Federal funds they can't put it in the stock market to appreciate, so demanding interest from Favre on a "loan" of Federal money is actually illegal.

Aged 6 weeks in the sun

It's not that McDermott wants to just run, it's about the conservative nature of the passing game too. It's designed for short open passes to act as a running game with high percentage throws but little to no upside unless the WR makes 5 guys miss... Just go look at average depth or routes and targets dropping like stones. Diggs in the KC game is the prime example...

I guess we're just on opposite sides of this situation because clearly we see the evidence showing different things. I think the massive changes from the 2020/2021 seasons to the 2022/2023 seasons were more than just a different play caller. It's a schematic change away from what Josh and the offensive personnel do best. Sure production is there, but you have Josh F'in Allen lol bro is SUPERMAN, you better produce lol. He covers TONS of ills with his legs, his arm, being impossible to sack etc... when people throw out how we win and he puts up video game numbers as an endorsement of coaching, I'll throw back that Allen is an alien the likes of which we've never seen.... He was on the Ascent with Daboll, imagine how good he'd be if they crafted the offense better to him. Short outs, screens, and short routes were a staple of this offense... That's a massive change from Daboll. McDermott said in 2022 he wanted the offense to take fewer risks... Well the OC works for him, and the seasons entire script was short low risk passing. Why does Josh always look better in the 4th quarter when the chips are down and he needs a play? Because they let Josh be Josh ... He runs, he throws all over the field to more vertical routes, he superman's some hoes! He goes full on Josh. But for 3 quarters leading up to that, game in and game out for 2 years, it looks so difficult. Why has Diggs' average depth of target in dropped to below 10 yards in 10 of his past 19 games and it's over 2 yards shorter than his career avg in Buffalo? Dumb ass bubble screens and stuff HE'S NOT DESIGNED TO DO. Dude is one of the best route runners creating separation down field and we delegated him to gadget guy. Against KC he only had 2 targets over 7 yards.... One was the deep ball and one was 15 yards down field, the other 6 were: -7, -1, 1, 4, 5, 5.... Bro, come on... Tell me this isn't conservative hold the ball use short passes like runs, and control the clock football. That's NOT Josh Allen, it's playing conservative and frankly scared. It's how the Bills play now since Daboll left. Dorsey did it, Brady did it ... It's a schematic plan and it comes from the HC and how HE wants the game to go. Few challenges down field, just enough to keep them honest, short high percentage passes hoping for YAC. It's what you do when you have Ryan Fitzpatrick at QB and no WRs... Not Josh Allen, Diggs, Cook, Kincaid.... But we can agree to disagree here man. I just see a dramatic shift in offensive philosophy with how they constructed game plans, route trees, and eliminated the air raid scheme they would employ at will under Daboll. Everything looked difficult for the offense, because they're not playing to their strengths... So what are they playing to? JMO I guess, but McDermott's desire to play mistake free football with field position, and let his D dominate. Which 20 years ago with Kyle Orton sure.... But it's 2023 and you have QB1 JA17.... This scheme is a joke, not because these coaches don't know what they're doing, it because it's what the HC wants.

I don't think that's the criticism. IMO, there is considerable reason to distrust McDermott, just as the other side has reason to praise him. McDermott has proven he's a defensive mastermind... but there are concerns about his handling of other coaches... IE the power struggle/mutual dislike between him and Daboll, the odd handling of Frazier walking away, WR coach Chad Hall leaving Buffalo for a lateral move to Jacksonville the year after his players bought him a truck because he didn't want to be here (he had to request to leave in order to take a move like that), and there are other positional coaches who've left for lateral or even down to college moves at a higher rate than you see from other places that are winning. Usually when coaches leave it's to take a promotion, especially if you're coming from a winning organization like Buffalo has been. But when you're taking lateral moves or downgrading yourself from the offensive line coach of the bills to the offensive line coach of Virginia Tech, there's something wrong. Either your head coach doesn't know how to hire assistant coaches, or the assistant coaches refuse to want to work with the head coach. Again we are winning, it's not like these guys are massively underperforming in their duties... It's VERY clear, Buffalo is McDermott's show... His way or the highway... And players and coaches who don't like it can pound salt. The concerns with this are that he's defensive minded, conservative, and I agree that he wants th Bills to play a safe no-risk offense to mitigate risk and win close games. That's just not Josh Allen though... Dudes a gunslinger, he'll make mistakes, but tons of WOWZAH plays too... He's modern day Brett Favre, and you need to ride out th bad with the good. But I think McDermott wants a regulator on the motor, which hampers things. You could hear it in his interviews, especially when they were six and six, McDermott openly talked about how the defense was doing great in the offense needed to match it. I mean that's not necessarily incorrect when the defense was standing at its head in the offense underperformed under Dorsey, that's why he was fired. But at the same time you're the head coach, everything rolls up under you too. It was a clear divide within the team, it was McDermott versus the offense not hey we need to be better. It was they as in the offense needed to be better. I thought it was very jarring to hear comments like that from a head coach, and frankly previous years he didn't sound like that. That was new to him being the defensive coordinator and head coach. I think it created more divisiveness within the team because his focus and even his handling of situational play calling and clock management has changed for the worse and more conservative. Saying just because we're winning means McDermott is doing a great job is massively flawed. But also saying McDermott has to go without actually citing reasons is equally flawed. I personally think McDermott is a product of having a great general manager, and Josh Allen.... McDermott did hand pick both... But I think his overly conservative nature, his terrible clock management, and his unwillingness to let Josh be Josh unless it's regulated in a way he's comfortable with is a huge problem. I'd love to say I think he can grow more, and in 2020 and 2021 I thought he was showing some change in the way he managed the team as a whole in the offense, but that reverted in 22 and 23. I think that was just Brian Gable standing up and saying he was going to do whatever he wanted to do with his offense. I think the criticism is equally right, McDermott is never going to have another offensive coordinator like daboll come in who isn't going to tow whatever line McDermott draws in the sand. Rather that be the combination of run to pass, the amount of runs Josh Allen is taking, the willingness to put the ball in the air over the middle of the field in "risky" situations... Look at the route trees over the past 2 years versus the 2 years prior to that. Everything has gotten shorter and shorter, they've moved to tons of screen and dump passes which are high percentage low risk passes. I'm sorry but you don't have Josh Allen to throw 25 screen passes a game. You have that guy because he can whip that ball literally anywhere on the field at any given time. But we've become hyper conservative to try and be very very efficient and mitigate risk. I mean that's not necessarily a bad thing when you add other elements into it, something that we basically did not do effectively this year. Some of that's on Josh missing deep balls, some of that's on scheme being not great, and frankly some of it's on them not wanting to take more risks. Joe Brady coming in is the safe call for McDermott, he knows exactly what he's getting, and Joe Brady knows it's McDermott's show. It was predictable that this was the way it was going to go, and it's not necessarily a bad call, Brady was able to more effectively call the offense than Dorsey far and away. I'm just very curious if they're going to start changing away from some of these terrible screenpass concepts and open up downfield more the way they have in years past and leverage people like diggs and Kincaid and Shakir because these guys are not bubble screen running threats. They don't have the speed for it, they're short to intermediate depth kind of players that can really break a game by picking up chunk yardage. I guess to me this year they looked like a team that didn't know what they wanted to be. They didn't build game plans to effectively utilize the talent they had on the field. The way Diggs fell off was proof of that, they way Harty never got going after being a reasonable contract considering our cap space, is more proof. Sheffield never came around, Davis looked lost, it was just a "WTF am I watching" kind of year. Hopefully Brady can have more vision, hopefully there isn't meddling from the head coach on how things are going to be drawn up. McDermott is here, he's not leaving, And frankly even if they have missed the playoffs this year, he would still be our head coach. He's not even kind of on the hot seat, so like him or not we need to settle in. Maybe... Hopefully Pegs will pull the chute if they fall short again, but you never know. I worry that the tire fire that are the Sabres juxtaposed with the comparative success the bills have been will give mcdermott a lot more rope even if they're not winning titles.

Dude, Philly fired Pederson in January and hired Nick Sirianni... that article you posted is from like January 1st.

He wouldn't be a 1500 yard back simply because he'd be splitting the rock 3 ways with Singletary and Moss. Don't get me wrong he'd be a great addition, but this is the kind of thing you'd have wanted to get done before the draft and camp. At this point they have a similar style guy in Moss who they invested a pick in to get. Singletary is "the guy" and every report is that he looks GREAT thus far in camp. I just don't see a world where they pay to sign Fournette and totally shift offensive plans to the new guy when they have Singletary who know the offense already and Moss who's been in camp and had his head int he playbook all off-season. If Fournette came in he'd be playing catch up from day 1, he likely wouldn't be up to speed for at least a few weeks, and by then I certainly hope Singletary already looks good out there, so why would they cut his carries back? I mean if he stinks we have bigger concerns. Fournette is best off going to a team with RB needs like Chicago where Montgomery just got hurt, and Tarik Cohen is the lead to get carries but stinks. They're desperate enough to change their offense at this point for Fournette IMO... we should not be. If Moss' injury that has kept him out of practice is serious then I wouldn't mind them having him in, because he's definitely better than anyone else behind Singletary, but that's a big if.

So the defense of him is that after the fact he realized he should've tried more and been smarter with his money? Sounds like the regrets of 90% of retired professional athletes. Also Washington wasn't his last stop, he went to New England and still didn't get back that "passion" for the game.

Dareus and Albert Haynesworth are two case studies into guys who worked hard to get PAID, then just put it on cruise til they got drummed out of the league laughing all the way to the local Chick-fil-A... and bank too I supposed. He could've been an amazing player, but the "give a *****" gene just isn't there, and now the entire league has seen it. Why bother bringing in a guy who you know won't try hard and will be a bad influence on those around him? That's why he isn't signed.

If I recall Joseph had some off the field concerns coming out and that was a part of why he fell. Overall a lot of people really liked him as an athletic prospect, very much in the rangy mold we need here in Buffalo for McDermott's scheme. He seemed like a great pick late in the draft for another Milano kid of boom potential... but we may be seeing the other side of that coin... the guy tho fits the bill but doesn't put it all together.

I was looking forward to seeing what we had in this kid, but thus far the injury bug has been his biggest enemy. Hopefully he can get right on the PS this year, but the clock is ticking on his "tryout" for the NFL... one season lost, now a second TC... not looking good, he really needs to impress as a practice player and year 3 will be make or break for him sneaking onto a 53 or not.