HappyDays

You might be surprised to know that I almost always agree with this. The first time I saw Coleman's profile was "contested catch specialist" I was out on him. But the more I've seen the more I have liked him. He has more nuance to his route running than the moniker would have you believe. He also moves very well with the ball in his hands. Not going to speed by guys of course but he will bully through him and fight for tough extra yards. Mike Williams is a pure contested catch specialist with really nothing else to write home about. And even he has two 1000 yard seasons on his resume, he has just unfortunately dealt with a ton of injuries.

WRs are running their 40s now. Finally. We can now throw out all of the film evaluation and simply rank WRs by their 40 time.

I feel the exact opposite. Zone coverage is where I think he could struggle at first, but we have other zone beaters on the roster. I want a WR that can win in 1v1 coverage because as of right now we don't have that player on the roster (unless Diggs returns to form). Coleman is physically dominant at the catch point and wins on vertical routes. That is a great skill set against 1v1 coverage. He can also eat defenses alive on quick slants if they want to live in man. In the red zone he is an automatic mismatch in man. I still have Troy Franklin as my #1 realistic option for the Bills because I agree quick separation and speed at all levels of the field is the most valuable skill set a WR can have. If he's gone however I don't see another realistically available WR that has that skill set. So of the other available skill sets Coleman's intrigues me the most and I think it would be the best fit with Josh Allen. Also his ceiling is sky high, even higher than Franklin's IMO.

I've seen him listed as a 2nd round target for the Bills... I know instincts matter more for safeties but this is putrid. In the 5th round I'd be fine with the pick.

It can be hard to analyze a WR separately from his QB. I like Shakir but I think his stats are inflated because he plays with an elite QB. He is not the caliber of player where you start thinking "if we draft another WR, where will he get his snaps?" For example drafting a 3-tech high would be pointless because Oliver will get all the snaps. Or drafting a guard high. Shakir isn't so good that he is going to keep a good WR off the field or split time with him. I would compare the situation to Gabe Davis in 2020 and we all saw what happened when we tried to make him a higher volume target. Some players are much better off as low volume targets.

Shakir isn't nearly as snappy a route runner as Beasley was in his prime. Maybe he will develop into that caliber of safety net but right now he is more of a role player IMO. That being said the role he plays is extremely valuable. Strong hands and body control at the catch point, instinctive and deceptively fast with the ball in his hands. We haven't had a player like him in the Josh Allen era. If he is the 3rd or 4th pass catcher on the depth chart we are in excellent shape.

People are overthinking the 1st round. Defensive linemen like Chop Robinson, Darius Robinson, Sweat, etc. are available at the bottom of the 1st round every single year. WRs like Coleman, Franklin, Legette, etc. are not usually there. The top to bottom strength of the WR class is pushing good WR prospects further down the board than they would usually go. So this year's draft strategy is a no brainer. Take the best WR available in the 1st round because it will almost certainly be the best value pick. And then take another one by round 5.

I don't think Davis has an alpha bone in his body. He gave up on routes and catches here at an alarming rate. He got bullied at the catch point in contested situations. He almost never fought through contact with the ball in his hands. Davis has been a pure over the top WR and not a great one at that. I don't see the comparison personally. I'm sure his skills will mostly shine on vertical routes, but I could also see him getting fed a bunch of quick slants with his ability to box out defenders and fight through contact. He immediately profiles as a 3rd down and red zone weapon IMO, and still has plenty of room to develop. Wouldn't you say the same thing about Legette? More vertical explosiveness than down to down separation, right?

Coleman has really grown on me this offseason. Don't want to read too much into a short interview but it seems he has the alpha mentality that a WR with his skill set needs to be successful. Still very young too, turning 21 in May. I think the Bills could really like him. Physical traits, young, high football character, fills a need. He fits the 1st round profile.

Probably not. It sure would be fun though. We would have to pull every lever we had and probably include a couple void years at the end to minimize his cap hit in 2024. Cut Morse, cut White, cut Poyer, maybe even restructure Diggs as much as that seems like a bad idea. All of that plus the extra $12.9 million in cap space, I think it would be feasible and give the current regime one or two last all-in years before they either close the deal or we let another regime handle the rebuild.

Can we get to 100 pages by April?

Underperforming isn't the right word for him. But I am confident saying he is not worth his cap hit this year. Not when legitimate upgrades at WR and DE can be had in free agency. But it would require Beane make a ruthless decision with a player that has done everything right since he got here. I don't know if he has it in him, unfortunately.

This is where the family mindset hurts our team. I suspect Beane will feel like he owes players like White and Morse something instead of making the right decision and moving on. Hopefully he proves me wrong. Up to this point he has been way too much of a pushover when it comes to overpaid underperforming players.

Literally every single year some position on the defensive line will be a need. It is never a finished product. We need to just make it a point to finally give Allen a WR with true blue chip traits. There's really no excuse this year.

Yeah I'm just not impressed by 8th or 7th. With Jared Goff as your QB that's an impressive ranking. With Josh Allen it's below par. And I don't even care about the rankings that much, the schedule and different game situations have a big effect on that. It is a fact though that each of the past few seasons has featured a midseason slump from the passing offense which has directly contributed to us missing out on the #1 seed. Those slumps typically have featured below par production from the WRs. This year against the Chiefs in the playoffs we got nothing from our WRs other than Shakir. Again this directly contributed to us losing the game. Enough is enough. I couldn't agree more. That's why I'm a proponent of overstocking the WR room for the first time since 2020 when the passing offense was clearly the best in the Josh Allen era. I've said before that adding pass catching talent is the easiest means to making a significant improvement on the team. Diggs, Beasley, and Brown all had career years here. Kincaid came in as a rookie and immediately broke a couple franchise records. What have all our depth DL signings amounted to? Nothing meaningful. With Allen as our QB we should have an offense capable of out scoring any team through sheer firepower. And we should be able to overcome a few bumps and bruises to our WR corps in the middle of the season.

You seem to think it's a choice between signing a decent WR or drafting one high. I'm saying do both. Solve the problem once and for all and leave no doubt. What if the 1st round pick isn't immediately ready? What if we suffer an injury? I don't understand why we have been scraping out the dregs when it comes to WR depth, but on the DL it's an unspeakable sin to have anything less than the most expensive depth in the league. You really think paying the likes of Tim Settle and Jordan Phillips will be more impactful than say a Curtis Samuel?

A player like Reynolds or Samuel or Mooney being our 3rd or 4th option would be amazing. Why are you afraid of this scenario?

Brown and Beasley were great signings... I don't know why we haven't tried to replicate that early success. You're making my poiny for me. Overpay a decent WR with upside a little. It's such an easy path to success and we just continually avoid it for no reason.

Would much rather do that than give the same type of money to players like Star Lotulelei, Vernon Butler, Jordan Phillips... Why is it never at WR that we're willing to dip into the lower middle class of free agents?

It's not about his replacement being better. It's about using his cap space to improve more important positions. Take a small step back at center to take a medium step forward at WR... No brainer IMO.

Maybe I just haven't seen it. Anything I've watched or read on him makes it seem like he struggles playing through contact at the catch point. I honestly don't care about contested catch stats because it doesn't seem to match up with the film. For example I see people say Keon Coleman has a low relative contested catch rate, but you turn on the film and that clearly isn't true. I don't know what the issue is with how that stat is calculated or tracked but it just doesn't match up with what I see. On Franklin - I agree contested catches are not his strong suit. And I'm not saying I need my WR to be a contested catch specialist. Quite the opposite, it's probably the last thing I care about. But if you're going to be just a straight line vertical WR you better have some kind of alpha catch skill set, or else you will never win reps unless you flat out leave your man in the dust. Thomas can probably do that a fair amount of the time but it's such a limited skill set and doesn't project to a true #1 role. Whereas with Franklin I think he offers more than just straight line vertical speed and has the ability to become a true #1. As far as Thomas's route running, you may be right that he can develop a larger tree. That is always hard to project. If he does, no doubt he is a 1st round talent. I would just prefer a better base starting point with his skill set to feel comfortable with him. I recognize I'm in the minority in my evaluation of him.

Not sure what Beane will do. But Morse during his end of season presser said something to the effect of "I would love to be back if they'll have me." That caught my attention. I can't imagine a player under contract would say that unless they had an inkling that a possible release was in their future.

I don't think Franklin is a one trick pony. His route running, specifically his footwork, is pretty advanced. I believe he will be able to run all of the routes and pull away from defenders after the catch. Thomas runs the Gabe Davis route tree, obviously at a much higher level but it is still too limited a skill set to invest a 1st round pick IMO.

He is almost 32 years old and plays arguably the 2nd least important/easiest to fill position on offense. It's time to get younger and cheaper at spots like that. Bates is a capable center, Alec Anderson looked good in preseason last year, and it's an easy position to fill on day 3 of the draft. I would keep Morse for $3 million this season and not a penny more, and with no ramifications in future years. That's equivalent to his dead cap hit. Anything more than that I'll take the $8.5 million in savings.

Metcalf was the definition of an alpha. My problem with Thomas is he basically just runs in a straight line and that's the extent of his skill set (with an elite release to match, to be fair). Metcalf did that and also made contested catches and was a beast to bring down. Thomas doesn't do well with any sort of contact at the catch point and he doesn't break tackles, and he is not going to avoid that in the NFL.