MAJBobby

So far I did the OL state Of position group. I am not bringing any of the UFAs back in that group.

I thought about McGlinchy as well. He is easily in the double digits in AAV. But definitely something to look into same with Powers. To be honest Powers is probably the better OG to go after over Risner now that I think about it because he is used to pass blocking for a Running QB. he is probably a 13M AAV OG I don’t like the Teller move though. Doesn’t fit with what I looked for in terms of pass pro. Hell of a Run Blocker though. That is why I think we can grab their center if we really wanted too. there is a chance with this position group to have your starters for this year and in the future locked in before the draft. Then you can focus on the eventual Dawkins and Bates replacements in the draft. Keeping your top assets for weapons. In theory (WR/TE will be my next grouping by the way that I write) you could buy there and draft OL. the theme people will get here is this offseason is all about premier Offensive talent and filling the defense with role players. A complete reversal of what the McD and Beane era have done.

Don’t forget to check out the OL one that was the first position group I started with.

SO glad we are not building a dome so our top elite QB gets to play in ***** weather in the playoffs

Hey you have 2 on this list that I absolutely want the Bills to buy. Risner and Taylor.

I would be happy on that. Buy a Low Penalty Low pressure rate starter. go in the Draft for the other (i am fine with that too) I almost wrote it that way to be honest because That is probably more in line with what the Bills would do and have shown over the years. But I decided to go all out on the First post to show the Cap is not going to stop us from doing any moves. My Key is on the OL in UFA I am looking only for these three things. Low Pressure Rate Low Penalty Rate Low Sack Rate. If I can meet those I will accept flaws in run blocking and other things because well 1 we dont run, and two if I am trying to buy a complete OL, I am paying an arm and a leg if the player doesnt come with flaws Like Orlando Brown or Boseman or Seumalo I would LOVE to do that, but I know the Bills never will do that so I dont want to take hours to write something that the Bills would never come close to doing

It is. I think there is a logical cap way to get out from all of them by 2024. Morse this year as I laid out Dawkins Next along with Bates (there is an out). Key to get out from Dawkins and Bates is hitting on a LT prospect and LG/RG prospect in this upcoming draft. Both are relatively thin in Rounds 1 and 2 this year, but good solid prospects in rounds 3-5 The OL strength in this draft from my early grading is rounds 3-5 that is where the value is.

And then to took another hard stop in the game as well. I think you will see a surgery on him. get it done early like in the next month and be ready to go come Summer

I think we will see a surgery on Allen here in the next coming month. No inside info there just a gut feeling Maybe, but they have mad moves, not always the right ones. But that is the fun part of the offseason playing the role of what moves you think they will make Perfect example I called going to buy pass rush last year. I didnt think Von was in the cards but did call for a proven passrusher. I think fans are pretty plugged into this team Beane even mentioned something about it last year at the CB spot.

WARNING - these do get a little long sometimes. OK here we are the first position group offseason primer. I think I am going to start with the OL. The issue is with the OL most of the time it performs and doesn’t perform as a single cell organism. That is how you want your OL to play as a single unit so it gets hard looking at individual players absent the group as a whole but I will work it. The way I structure these as those that have not read them before I will talk Financials, Pending Bills UFAs, on contract players, Notable UFAs (don’t spend much time here as with no idea with Tags and re-signings, but will mention some notables), Some notable draft picks from my early draft work, And then what I would do is I was the Bills. I then add the past writeups to the end of the post via links. The standard disclaimer: I use SPOTRAC (primarily) sometimes will use OverTheCap as well for the salary and contract information. I will also use profootball reference (primary) for stats. Also this isn’t meant to be a complete wrap-up of the past season but more so a look at in the future, obviously I will look back at times to talk about how I see the future. So here we go … Financials: Contracted players: 39 with a cap hit of $230.498M Cap Space (top 51): -5.464M Offensive Line – 5 players on contact (Spotrac shows 6 however that is because they are accounting for Saffolds void year as well he isn’t on the team) taking up 15.59% of CAP, 22rd highest in the NFL. Interesting here, with only 5 players on Contract we are taking up 15.59% of the cap, so this will have to be addressed and changes need to be made, we will bring at least 5 players in, most likely closer to 7 to 9 to fill out the 90. Good thing is there is some flexibility financially in the group that I will get to as well so you can improve the group most likely with the money that you can gain from inside the group if this is done right. Also the players that all played well under Bobby Johnson (Dawkins, Morse (not as much), Bates and Brown all regressed with Kromer as coach. That has to be looked at and that is a lot of regression on the OL group and with two of them that have been solid players in the past for a long time, that to me is something significant to evaluate. I am not sure if there are better OL coaches out there, but this is something that needs to be evaluated as part of this position group as well. RFA None UFA David Quessenberry – 32 years old, Cap hit in 2022 – 1.75M – Not too much to say here, was signed to provide depth was paid correctly for what he was intended to do. No reason to beat around the bush here, old, unathletic probably can move one. At the same time I could see him back in the similar role, league min contract depth player. Can play both OG and OT so this is what you should look for in cheap depth players. I think I would move on from David initially as there will be 10 others like him that you can sign post draft as the rest of you team is filled out. Justin Murray – 29 Years old, Cap hit in 2022 – 1.035M, See above, JAG depth option and can be addressed post draft letting him walk. Roger Saffold – 34 years old, Cap Hit in 2022 – 6.25M, Projected Market Value 5.4M – Here comes likely he first one some might want to debate. Me it is easy he isn’t a Bills moving forward. He was one of the worst OGs in the league. Issue with him here is also there could be some direct pull down on the performance of Morse and Dawkins as well here. I don’t think this is a Kromer thing because his same issues we saw are the same issues Tenn saw as well and why they moved on from him. Which is what I think we do as well. Greg Van Roten – 33 years old, Cap Hit in 2022 – 1.27M – See Quessenberry and Murray. JAG are we seeing a trend here with the Bills OL. A lot of JAGs employed to protect your franchise QB and to open holes in the running game. One good thing here is can play both OGs and C (so cant Bates, will get more on that later) again like really anyone on this list so far this is the type of player you can find after the draft. Ike Boettger – 28 years old, Cap Hit in 2022 – 1.187M – This is actually one that I finally got to in the UFA list I can make a case for. Was a very solid LG for us last year before the injury. I do not think he is a starter, but still needs time to recover from the achilles (See Kyle Williams) I probably would toss a 1 year deal around the same number he was at this year. Bobby Hart – 28 years old, Cap Hit in 2022 – 1.185M – this is a funny one to me. He carved a nice role out for himself as the 6th OL on the field when going heavy. Also, I think he found where he should be playing in the Inside spot. The problem is that is really all he can play at serviceable level is OG. I cannot pay a strict OG BU. Needs to have position versatility to have a BU role in the NFL. But if I can keep him at the 1.1M number I probably do bring him into camp on that number. On Contract Dion Dawkins age 29, 6.54% of cap, 14.824M cap hit (1.958M in savings, 9.81M in savings post June 1st) – Here is my fist hard one. What to do about Dawkins. He regressed this year and at times it could be argued that he was the worst OL on the field. My concern is what is causing the regression, was it a down year? Was it the Scheme? Was it the Slug net to him at OG? Was it the coach? There are too many questions here that I don’t really have answers for. He did have 8 penalties this year which is right about up there with his yearly average. Here is where I would make a change. Right now with the way his contract is set up you can move on from him in 2024 with little a nice savings IF they do not touch his contract. However at 8.855M base there is a way to save 5M here with the simple restructure and prorating out the bonus for the next 4 years (2 active contract years, 2 Void Years). I just Don’t think this is the right player to try and get cap space on because of the questions above on what is causing this years regression. I hate kicking the can down on players that 1. Are Hurt often, 2. Coming off a regression year and 3. Anyone over 30 not playing QB). Dawkins is clearly in Bullet 2. I could overlook that if he was the best player on the line, which he wasn’t that was Morse. Spencer Brown age 25, 0.58% of cap, 1.31M cap hit (880K in savings) – Rookie Deal with less than 1M in savings. I don’t do anything here with him he had the same penalty count as a rookie and is still stiff and limited athletically in Pass Pro, though he is an actual decent run blocker even at the second level (which points to enough of an athlete) I am not sure I think this could be a Kromer regression. He wasn’t the worst on the OL but then again never took the step he was primed to take. That said I am not throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. Best case scenario is he would be my Swing OT next year as I go and buy a Legit OT. Tommy Doyle, age 24, 0.45% against cap, 1.01M cap hit (861K savings) – This one is funny. I think he is fine as depth and the contract is right. I think the OL might be better with Doyle stepping in instead of Quessenberry but then we will never know because of his IR. Savings is under 1M too so not much there, UNLESS here is the Key Spencer Brown is your Swing OT. Then Doyle could be cut and save that almost 900K. Ryan Bates, age 26, 2.15% against cap, 4.875M cap hit (No Savings) – The out is after this year. I think Bates is another that suffered this year with Kromer. But at the end of the day I also think he is better at LG than RG. I would slide him over next to Dawkins next year, however there could be an argument here too that he is better as the swing interior (which can be done contact wise) if one of your starters is on a Rookie Deal. I don’t think they will be able to go buy 3 new starters on the OL in UFA. I think you Buy the OT and One OG. Then go into draft for rookies. Spend a lot of time on the OL this offseason in the draft and freaking HIT ON THEM. 4.875M is not a bad contract for a good solid OL that can start if need be and can play all 5 positions on the OL. I would Pay 5M to my 6th OL if they can play all 5 positions. Mitch Morse, age 31, 4.98% against cap, 11.3M cap hit (6.3M, 8.8M post June 1) – Last but not least the best OL the Bills had this year in Mitch Morse. He was a Solid Pivot, regressed in pass pro this year and had another Concussion. My issue with Morse is I have been screaming to plan for life after Morse now for a couple years, instead they tore up his old contract and signed a new one. (Maybe that is something they can do with Dawkins instead of kicking the can). His contract does offer some juice to squeeze on a simple structure probably about 3M in space. But the Bigger savings would come from the release. Which I do not think they will do. It would be a lot easier to do it IF they had a young center on Roster already (could that be the Bates Slide in role). He also has a trigger on 3/19 that fully guarantees 1.36M of his contract. Not a BIG issue if nothing is done before that trigger it would just lower the pre Jun 1 savings to 5M and post June 1 savings to 7.5M Notable UFAs – This list is actually quit long, right now with no contract extensions being done in the league and no tags used. So some that I list here may not even make it. But I will put my top 3 to 5 and then come ideas on them. OT Orlando Brown Jr – Yeah the top in the class and no reason to talk about him cannot afford and will not hit the market. I put him here to show you that while there might be better players I am tying to target players that would fit, improve within the financials. Obviously it is easy saying go sign the top guy. But that isn’t the mental challenge I want while writing these things. Jawaan Taylor, 25 years old. This is my top target, underrated in this class because of his run blocking ability. However, we do not run so that is not my concern at this point. Likely can get locked up long term for about 7M a year. So why do I want him… His pass blocking. He posted a 5.2% pressure rate which is very good, and still has ceiling in his play. Fits the Mold of Physical Specimens the Bills seem to target at 6-5 330 lbs. Mike McGlinchey, 29 years old – This is probably the top, most complete RT in the class. I would expect this contract to be around the 12.5M to 14M a year if they move on in San Fran, which probably prices us out here. Then some better older guys like George Fant, 30, Billy Turner, 31, OG Isaac Seumalo, 29 years – This is probably your top OG, and likely going to get 14M a year going forward that prices us out. However I do have some that I will talk. Dalton Risner, 27 years old – Here is about a 9M dollar a year OG. Gave up 3 sacks, 1 penalty in over 1000 snaps in Denver. Plays Both OG spots just as effectively so you can move Bates to LG and Risner your RG. This would be my top target in the OL Group. C Ethan Pocic, 27 years old – Massive tight cap space in CLE so likely hits the market. He is the pivot on one of the better OLs in the league. In 2022 played 800 snaps, let up 1 sack and 2 penalties. Probably around 8M max to land him with a bigger fish in Bozeman and Bradberry out there Notable Draft Picks OT 1st round Broderick Jones, 6’4”,315, Georgia Dewand Jones, 6’8, 360, Ohio State 2nd Round Blake Freeland, 6’8” 305, BYU Anton Harrison, 6’5” 309, OK Jaelyn Duncan, 6’5” 320, Maryland OG / C 1st round O’Cyrus Torence, 6’5”,335, Florida (OG) Dewand Jones, 6’8, 360, Ohio State 2nd Round Andrew Vorhees, 6’6” 320, USC (OG) John Michael Schmitz, 6’4” 320, Minnesota (C) (I hate double first names, almost as much as hyphen last names) Luke Wypler, 6’3” 300 Ohio State (C) Sedrick Van Pran 6’3” 310, Georgia (C) What I would do: I would Let all UFA walk. I can get that similar play cheaper in the draft and post draft when you are filling the team with role players. No reason to sign them now. I would Cut Morse Saves 6.3M I would not touch Dawkins Contract. Instead I am getting the rest of the money for what I am about to do elsewhere. I Sign Ethan Pocic, Jawaan Taylor and Dalton Risner. Now before you say we cannot fit all that in the cap, absolutely we can absolutely fit it all with proper structure. Just like we had Vons Cap at 5M this year. And it will be about time we INVESTED in the OL. That then allows the flexibility in the draft to get more young cheap Rookie Contracts on the team. And can use premier picks for Weapons. It would make the OL Look like this LT – Dawkins LG – Bates C – Pocic (call it 8M AAV) (Probably around a 3-4M 2023 cap hit) RG – Risner (call it 10M AAV) Likely around a 5M cap hit in 2023) RT – Taylor (Lets call this 10M max, I think it will be closer to 7) so you are at around a 5M hit in 2023) Swing OT – Brown and Doyle So that would need to be around 15M in space to do this got 6 coming from Morse. Need another 9. There is the easy bank of Allen. So the cap layout is more than do able to buy what SHOULD be projected a very good OL and fixes the NO 1 problem with the team. All Before going into the draft. PAST WRITEUPS State of the Franchise

Yeah I do think that played a part. They did look emotionally drained. But to be Honest Saffold everything we saw yesterday was there ALL Season just wasnt exploited in a way the Bengals worked us.

Absolutely will. Yeah they are alot of work. Have been doing them a couple years running now, it gets me in the offseason mindset. By all means if you want to still do them as well everyone would have no issue reading a couple views. I might be able to get one out later today or tomorrow. Trying to figure our where to start. I am thinking OL will be the first one I do I think it is Kromer negatively affected both Brown and Dawkins to be honest. Even Bates and Morse "regressed" and what was the real change, losing the OC (might have some in it but doubtful) changing out the OL Coach, hmmm this could very well be the issue. I dont know it really has never been really good and it finally came to a head IMO

I completely agree. The Question is for me how much of that is on Fraizer (a Cover 2 coach) and how much is it on McD (Cover 3). This is very much McDs defense so that is why I wonder outloud how much is Fraizer and how much is McD. Only way to really properly see that would be Fraizer would have to go. I just dont think that is happening (plausible deniability for the HC) unless it is for he was hired as a HC. I do think I am done with the scheme and mindset of the Defense and would love to bring in someone from outside the organization. That would tell me McD is willing to move away from his design on defense.

Here is the start to my series. This is the thinking I have going into writing these on where the team is. I will take comments and observations from this thread to help shape what I write int he future. Here we are again in an all too familiar spot lately being bounced out of the playoffs but this time by another young QB, and by another up top end AFC team. For a season filled with tragedy, distractions and issues I am not in a bad place as I write this so that is good. I also do not think all the over-reactions of window closing, we are done yada yada are accurate not as long as you have a healthy top QB. Which we do have. However that being said I wanted to get the state of the franchise Off-Season primer out today (as I see it as I enter into Offseason Mode where I will break down position groups like always, while I prep for UFA and the Draft. The standard disclaimer: I use SPOTRAC (primarily) sometimes will use OverTheCap as well for the salary and contract information. I will also use profootball reference (primary) for stats. Also this isn’t meant to be a complete wrap-up of the past season but more so a look at in the future, obviously I will look back at times to talk about how I see the future. So with no more rambling to start I guess I will get into it. Financials: Contracted players: 39 with a cap hit of $230.498M Cap Space (top 51): -5.464M Coaching: Let me start off by saying No I don’t think nor would I agree with McDermott being fired this year. Coming out of the KC game last year the 13 seconds unluckiness would have had everyone here thinking ok we are there, Run it back. So what the coaches did was improve once again on defense and ran it back. At the end of the day that decision proved to be a wrong path but no one would blame him here. Now also I will say I don’t think there is another HC (that is currently coaching, Maybe Tomlin) that I would have wanted in charge of this team THIS year with all the tragedy in the area and team and all the distractions. That being said Next year McD stops getting my good will, if he cannot get this team over the hump he is Lovie Smith and that is wasting an elite talent at QB. My Knee jerk response would be Fire Dorsey. And very well may still be on board with that, however more likely he is back (if he doesn’t get a HC job) and we will see if he improves in year two designing and playcalling an offense. There was no design to his offense. No linking plays now situational football, he was JUST calling plays a lot of time with no strategic thinking in mind. That cannot happen in todays NFL. I do think that this offense really missed Daboll but it goes deeper than that. It is almost like there is a disconnect here between the QB – OC – HC – GM, I will explain what I mean below. 2022 offseason – Was clear they wanted a Pass Catching RB. Continued that obsession at the trade deadline. So who was driving that desire? Dorsey? Beane? McD? Allen? I doubt it as McD or Allen so that is on Beane and Dorsey. So here were those plays? There was no screens, the angle routes and Cook out of the backfield routes we hear so much about in the offseason where not there. Some of that could have been on Allen not taking the easier throw, but again lets get to offensive design, if that was wanted SO MUCH. Why were there not plays designed for the RB to be the first read?? Another instance. Wanting that TE2 again they prioritized a second pass catching TE in the offseason, Morris beats out Howard this offseason with the 2 TE sets, earns the spot and then those plays nonexistent. So the two priorities (that I can only think Dorsey wanted) were addressed, then the season comes and we get a poor mans Brian Daboll offense, ever since the MIA Box meltdown from Dorsey that is what was rolled out week to week. I think Joe Brady likely goes and Ken Dorsey stays. Defense (McD and Frazier) – news flash to you all, having a top Passing Defense all season doesn’t mean diddly to me when in the playoffs it gets shredded. I think your scheme has been figured out, it has been called simple, bland that is a problem. Yes I agree you blitz these young top QBs sparingly (they have proven they will shred it) but they have also proven they will shred your soft zone. So what is the answer here? Get a little more complex, and no don’t spend more premium assets on this side of the ball. I think there is a shakeup needed here and best hope is Fraizer get a HC, then we move on and get some picks back to help. Offense: 17 players on contract. Houston, we have a problem here. To be honest I am sure many will also tell you the same thing. I do think a couple things to start off. 1. I think there was a learning process going on with Dorsey, Brady and Allen that led into the season, which I kinda of backed up above. My Issues with this offense cannot be completely fixed in this offseason (for the most part) but they might be able to and I will explain. The two biggest issues I see are OL (I have not liked our OL for a long long time, and their flaws have been covered up by Allens play). So, because this is the biggest issue in the offense I will start there. I personally believe by the start of the 2024 season we SHOULD have 5 new OL starting, but that is two years down the line so I will look at what needs to occur in 2024. I am taking a page from KC and Cincy here after their two SBs. We need to replace LG, RG, RT. We should upgrade C, and LT as well (however might not need too if you get the other three right) with the exception of Center. I would get a Center this year as well if it was me. Only Keepers on the OL I see are: Dawkins, Bates (Depth), Brown (Depth), Morse (unless I move on). I will get into the moves at this position when I get to the OL primer, but the state of the Bills this is the worst unit they are fielding, and it is the one unit that you want good. Weapons – Outside Diggs we have not much. Davis is a WR3 playing WR2. And the Rest are JAGs. Really outside what the Giants the Bills had the worst weapon group in the playoffs. How good would this offense be with a Hill or Waddle pair? A Chase and Higgins pair? A Williams and Eckler and Allen Trio? It is Diggs and Only Diggs. Defense: 18 on Contract. There are issues here, it is amazing when Jones doesn’t play how bad they are against the Run again. 51M tied up in the DL for 2023. So I am not sure there is much they can do here, I am thinking they ill likely roll it back with what they got, hoping to squeeze at least one more year from Von Miller. We have to he isn’t going anywhere and the out for him isn’t until the end of next year. To be honest I think the biggest issue on the defense is more scheme and aggressiveness. I will get into what can be done in each position group when I get to them. Personally, I think it is time for a shakeup here. There are trends that cannot be ignored. Like the Lull every time during the season. That lull seems to foreshadow what will occur in the postseason. So I think there needs to be a shakeup in scheme which might mean McD swallowing his Defensive Pride, handing it to an outside the team DC. My thoughts going into the offseason is that we need to spend out premium assets on the Offense and Fill the Defense with roleplayers. That is how I am going to look at this offseason as I build out the offseason primers for each position group. Comments and thoughts will be appreciated as I start my planning for the offseason primers.

How about instead of Diggs. You use your 1st. Draft a Rookie WR. Put him out at WR2 and get Allen some weapons. then in rounds 2,3,4,5,6 OL

Man it really seems like there have been a lot of people just waiting to post their Pre Draft and 2018 Allen takes. they feel So happy 4 years later they get to use them for a game.

No I will Not sign up to roll back Bills football to the 1970s run *****.

You will get my ideas later. but short story premier assets go to offense OL WR OL role players on defense

Only coaches that will be gone are the ones that move on voluntarily

Thanks for the years. time for you to go good luck elsewhere

Wait you actually think the Bills OL is even a little good? Ooo how many Runs did Bills do too?

1. agree 2. sure 3. Sure 4. No 5. Yep 6. Sure - It’s McD Defense though 7. yep 8. No 9. YES should have been doing this forever 10. YES see 9. 11. Sure after 3rd round 12. No 13. HELL NO 14. Sure my comments to your numbered list.

You don’t need stud Lineman running the ball in slippery turf.

This. This was the move we should have made. Not a RB.

It is because that is how this Coach and Front office Built it. Allen and Diggs. worst OL in the playoffs (yes worse than MIA and CINCY with their BUs). worst weapon group in the playoffs. bit ***** so glad we keep investing in Defense because you know in this NFL the defense becomes immediately irrelevant against Top offenses.