HappyDays

It's May. Talk is all you'll get for a few months...

This is something:

Media is in attendance today.

He's spent a total of two years of his life focusing exclusively on football. He just turned 21 last week. Give the kid a chance, yeah? Clearly he understands the game and is going to give everything he's got to become a great player.

Somewhat of a long read but worth your time. One nugget that I found interesting: There's a much publicized quote from Beane after the draft where he said something to the effect of "it will be hard for Coleman to start from day one." This is the messaging the team always puts out there for their rookies to hear. But he let slip their real plans in the chaos of draft weekend - Coleman is going to be the early favorite for the starting X receiver. And based on this article I think he's going to quickly earn the trust of the coaching staff and win that role.

Blows my mind that people still get arrested for marijuana possession in the year 2024. Stupid to get caught but I don't think they should get suspended for this and I doubt they will. Probably just a team fine.

Arm length isn't just about catch radius. In the context of this discussion it's about if he can play outside. Joe Marino pointed out a few weeks ago there have been three WRs ever with sub-30" arms that had meaningful careers - Isaiah McKenzie, Hunter Renfrow, and the 3rd one escapes me now but in any case it was all career slot WRs.

Unfortunately I think after the MVS signing there is almost no chance of a big trade. Maybe at the deadline. The top 5 WRs are locked in. Coleman, Samuel, and Shakir obviously. Hollins and MVS both got guaranteed money which is a sign that they are roster locks (OJ Howard is the only player that got guaranteed money and didn't make the roster in the Beane era). That leaves room for one more WR. If a trade was in the cards, I don't think we bother bringing Claypool and Hamler to camp. So before MVS I agreed a trade was still likely because there were two open spots and not enough candidates to fill them. With just one open spot I think the WR room is what it is, unfortunately. The 6th spot will be one of the scratch offs we've signed or it will be one of our late round/UDFA rookie WRs from last year. Unless Claypool or Hamler miraculously turns their career around I agree that Beane is going to look stupid but you should accept now that no big moves are coming.

Speed is good but size and physicality is where we've faltered in the playoffs. That's why I love the Keon Coleman pick. Of course I wanted us to draft one of each type of WR, one for size one for speed. It is frustrating that Beane has continued to do the absolute bare minimum at the position while continuing to invest ample resources in the DL to little effect when it matters. We're entering year 8 now, I think we just have to accept that's who this regime is unfortunately.

The article explains why it's meaningful:

I'm not being silly. It's actually very simple. Every single offense has a certain percentage of plays throughout the season where nobody gets open in time. Sometimes the defensive coverage just flat out wins. We can agree on this, yes? It follows that less talented offenses will have a higher percentage of those plays. So that's the other failing of this whole concept. "Just throw it to the open guy" is the kind of point you make in May when you're far enough away from watching games that you forget what NFL football looks like. The Bills already faced the highest man coverage percentage of any offense in the league last year. That wasn't a coincidence and it's not going to change until we give defenses a reason to fear it. Defenses last year figured out quickly they could just 1v1 us to death and trust that nobody on our side would win their matchup. Especially once Diggs fell off a cliff that was an easy strategy to follow and only Josh Allen magic tricks were able to overcome it with any level of consistency.

I wanted to come back to this. Yes I think Allen will hit 4,000 yards passing, although I'm not quite as certain as I want to be. His passing YPG last year was his lowest since 2019. That coincided with him not having a true #1 WR for the last 10 or so games. Clearly that limitation matters, the numbers prove it. Still he's an elite QB playing behind what's likely to be a top 10ish OL. 4,000 passing yards is the expectation. My question is who steps up for him in critical moments in critical games and in the playoffs? There's a really really really wide gulf between being a top 5 regular season team and winning a Super Bowl, as the Bills have exemplified better than anybody in recent memory. Those critical plays in critical moments are what bridge that gulf - it's why the Chiefs have won three Super Bowls - and it can't just be one player capable of making those plays. The whole notion of just "spreading the ball around" is fine for winning a lot of games, but it fails when you need somebody to make a special play and close out a game that matters. The game that gets you the #1 seed or gets you one round further in the playoffs. I think the gap between the two sides in this discussion is closer than it appears. Nobody thinks the Bills offense is going to suck this year. I'm sure everybody agrees it will hover around top 5ish pretty much no matter what and we'll make it to the divisional round pretty much no matter what. It's that next massive step that I worry about. The pure production numbers will all look great but we'll still be sitting here next February with the same disappointment and the same discussions playing out. Nobody will be able to put their finger on exactly why we failed but I guarantee it will be because of 5-6 individual moments throughout the season and playoffs that could have been made by more special players. As to your 2nd question - I think someone will hit 1,000 yards but again I'm not as confident as I'd like to be. And again I just don't really care that much. The better question is how many game changing special plays will players not named Josh Allen make? Plays like Garrett Wilson juggling and catching a one handed rebound against Tre White in the season opener. Courtland Sutton making a stunning toe tapping catch in the corner of the endzone on a prayer of a throw. Jake Elliott nailing a 60 yarder in the driving rain. For 99% of those games you might say the two teams were equal, for better or worse. That final 1% was closed by one player making one play and they certainly weren't wearing a Bills jersey.

What if nobody gets open

I like Shakir as a complementary piece. Expecting him to grow into the caliber of a Kupp or an ASB is if anything unfair to him IMO. That's how I would describe this WR room. It's top to bottom all complementary pieces. There is no go to guy unless Coleman defies expectations and immediately becomes a #1 caliber WR. My best hope isn't in the WR room. It's in Kincaid. He's the one player on the roster where I see a realistic path to being an elite receiver this year. After him my next best hope is Coleman hitting his stride by week 10 or so. So I'm not saying there is no path. But if that path doesn't develop we are not going to have an elite offense by "spreading the ball around." Every elite offense in recent memory has had a #1 target that everybody knew was the #1. In fact all elite offenses in recent memory also had a #2 target that was clearly the #2. There's no such thing as #1/#2 by committee. I thought that debate was closed last year...

That's really not true at all... Kupp was drafted 69th overall and had 869 yards in his rookie season. ASB was drafted 112th overall and had 912 yards in his rookie season. Shakir was drafted 148th overall and had 161 yards in his rookie season... 611 yards last year... So Kupp and ASB each had more yards in their rookie season than Shakir had in his sophomore season. It's forgotten now but Shakir was on the roster bubble throughout much of training camp last year. He came on quite nicely in the 2nd half of the season but in no way has his career arc been close to the two elite players you named. It isn't nearly as simple as just giving a player more targets and expecting a bunch of more yards. Some players are naturally just better as low target players. Gabe Davis was like that. It remains to be seen how Shakir responds to an increased role.

You know Beane didn't take a RB with KC's 3rd round pick... right? *Disclaimer: I know you are just a troll and you aren't going to spend a single brain cell considering anything I said

Yes he traded back and took one of the high 2nd round caliber WRs in the high 2nd round where they belonged. I'll criticize Beane plenty but that was a flat out wise move, pending how those players' careers turn out of course. Getting one of those WRs and still recouping a 3rd round pick was always the smart play. Maybe wait until we see those WRs play a couple years before we make call outs, yeah? *Gonna start putting a disclaimer in all my responses to you that I know you are just a troll and you aren't going to spend a single brain cell considering anything I said

Yes if the result was different the result would be different. If Butker doesn't leave 4 points on the board in the 2022 divisional game we don't even have a chance to take the lead at the end. If Hardman doesn't fumble the ball through the endzone in this year's divisional game, the game is over right then and we're all talking about nothing but the stupid decision to run Hamlin on the fake punt. We can go around and around on this stuff. The result is the result. Hmm

Kind of. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10119807-nfl-rumors-odell-beckham-jr-considered-chiefs-bills-before-dolphins-contract Not hard to read between the lines on this - Miami gave him a better offer with better incentives so he chose them over us or the Chiefs. It came down to money like it always does.

You're right, I exaggerated. Better way to say it is the Bills offense needs to be capable of putting up 35 points in the playoffs. I think that's the caliber of offense that would get us over the hump in the playoffs regardless of how our defense performs. Yes that is the Chiefs approach.

Just throwing this out there because we could have had OBJ over MVS if we really wanted to: I would bet MVS's cap hit comes in pretty close to $2M. We intentionally chose him over OBJ as a player, not for financial reasons. We'll see how that decision turns out.