HappyDays

I don't know I thought that trade was a no brainer at the time. 5th round is where all the draftniks said the value of this draft class fell off a cliff. We got back a free mid to high 4th round pick next year, I can't argue with that. I'm as annoyed as anyone that we didn't take two WRs in this draft but I don't think that trade is what prevented it. In the later rounds they were drafting guys that they were confident could make the team (or would not be poached by another team at final cutdowns), and for whatever reason they don't think a late round WR has a shot of beating out... Mack Hollins..... I don't get it but that's what they told us with their actions.

Pegula doesn't make the decisions, Beane does. It's pretty obvious Bishop was the guy they were after. They had deals in place to trade down but didn't because their guy was there. I'll criticize Beane for many things but not for being a liar. He shoots straight. There's no reason to lie and act like he loves Bishop any more than he does. If anything it just looks bad on him in the future if Bishop doesn't turn out to be a good player because he openly admitted that he not only drafted the player but tried to trade up for him. Beane if anything is too honest for his own good.

The 5th year option is a bargaining chip, it isn't something you make draft decisions around. In fact by the trade value chart the drop off in value from #32 to #33 is slightly LESS than the drop off in value from the adjacent picks just before and after, which signals that GMs see those picks as CLOSER in value. I would guess it's because #33 gets paid about $2.2M less than #32 over the life of their 4 year contract which is not insubstantial. In general you don't give up almost two full rounds (59 picks) of draft value because you're worried about something that doesn't come into play until 2029 when Josh Allen is 33 years old.

By the Rich Hill trade chart the trade was exactly equal. What makes you think it was bad value?

It's about the drop off from round to round. Cole Bishop to Jaden Hicks is a much lesser drop off than say Kingsley Suamataia to Giovanni Manu. In any case safeties are the second cheapest position behind only RB so it just isn't a great use of resources taking one in the top 75 or so picks IMO. A perceived short term need shouldn't change the strategy. And that's my overall takeaway from the draft as a whole - we didn't come away with a lot of great value. If you asked analysts before the draft what are the weak positions, they would have said DL, SAF, and RB. We spent the entire middle of our draft selecting those exact positions... For all the talk of a deep WR and OL class, we took one player total from those positions out of the first 140 picks.

Schedule leak - The Bills will play the Chiefs the first game that Rice's suspension ends. Source - I've been a Bills fan my entire life and I know how these things work.

I won't pretend to completely understand this stuff. I just know that someone has to pay the bill, and if Tennessee retains $2M in dead cap of their own (according to OTC, perhaps they are wrong) that must mean someone else is paying the other $16M. With Diggs the dead cap hit went entirely on our side.

I don't think we could afford him until closer to the trade deadline. According to OTC his cap hit is $18.3M this year and Tennessee only has $2M in dead cap if they trade him post-6/1. So unless I'm misunderstanding something he would count $16.3M against the cap for us in that scenario. It looks like he costs $1M per game so if we wait until say 9 games into the season we would only take a $7.3M cap hit. But who knows, maybe we could extend him right away in a way that lowers his 2024 cap hit?

He's the type of player that makes drafting a player like Jackson Powers-Johnson in the 1st round such an obvious waste of resources. The impact of JPJ on the field versus SVPG on the field is not worth four entire rounds of draft value. Similarly this is why I'm lower on the Bishop pick than just about anybody.

Good thoughts. Since we're hijacking Logic's thread, here's my updated thoughts on the picks one week out: Keon Coleman - I still love this pick, and if anything I like it even more now having heard some of his interviews. Even as someone that loved the player more than most, I knew his skill set would take refinement and he would likely not immediately hit the ground running. I'm more confident now that he will reach his ceiling because it sounds like he genuinely will put his best foot forward and not just coast off of his physical talent. Cole Bishop - I still don't like the value of a safety at this spot in the draft. I get why the Bills love him - 9.88 RAS score, seems very coachable and studious. Just feels like a position we could have gotten two rounds later without a big drop off, if any, in the impact on the field. I still think we missed out on taking a good OL talent at this spot. Bishop will have to be a truly great player to justify this selection IMO. DeWayne Carter - I still don't have a strong opinion on this player. DT is one of the positions where I have trouble trying to project their success at the next level. I'm fine with the value of a DT at this spot in the draft. I worry that the Bills graded him a half round higher than they should based on his character and passed on more talented prospects as a result. But I'm in wait and see mode on this one. Ray Davis - This is probably the pick that has grown on me the most. I still don't like the value of a RB this high, but the player I have grown to like. Davis runs the way that I like my RBs to run - always moving forward. Even when he jukes he isn't gathering his steps for an eternity, he just picks his direction and goes. His pass protection on the other hand I'm not as high on. It's a very boom or bust technique that he uses - he lowers his shoulder to thump the rusher instead of anchoring and using leverage. It looks highlight reel worthy when it works, but when it doesn't he might as well be a turnstile because he doesn't even slow the rusher down. Much like I feel with Cole Bishop, Davis will need to become a really good player to justify the selection. I think the tools to become that are there at least. Sedrick Van Pran-Granger - Still feel very good about this pick. It's the only pick where I feel that we got better value than the draft capital we spent. Nothing to add that hasn't already been said. I think he could start for us this year with McGovern at LG, and put David Edwards back in the backup role where he belongs. Edefuan Ulofoshio - This is the pick I'm still the most perplexed about. I don't see what he adds to the roster. He's an older rookie that's already suffered two major injuries. He apparently has below average instincts which is by far the most important trait for LBs in the modern NFL, even moreso in McDermott's defense. It's a position where we already have a lot of depth. Was the goal here just to draft a special teams player? This pick feels DOA like the Vosean Joseph pick a few years back but I guess we'll see. Javon Solomon - From hearing Beane talk about him, doesn't sound like this is a player that fits into our 4-3 defense, they just thought his value was too good to pass up at this spot in the draft. I'm good with that. He'll be a cheap rotational designated pass rusher for three years. Can't argue with the pick. Tylan Grable/Travis Clayton - I'm putting these two together because I have identical thoughts about them. I think Beane has gotten so frustrated by our 6th and 7th rounders getting poached by other teams at final cutdowns that he finally just drafted two players that have almost no chance of being poached. Both are way too raw for any team to devote a roster spot to them, I think. So essentially we drafted two PS players. I don't know how I feel about that. I've been saying we should be more willing to let 6th and 7th rounders make the roster as depth players and special teamers. Beane instead decided to circumvent the entire issue by drafting non-rosterable players. Interesting strategy... Daequan Hardy - I've seen a lot of people call this pick a steal in the 6th round. I'm not as confident of that after watching some of his film. He is certainly competitive out there but man he just gets roasted off the line way too frequently. I think he will have a hell of a time covering slot WRs at the next level, especially in McDermott's defense where Taron Johnson is asked to do a little bit of everything. But hey as a punt returner and special teams contributor I'm good with that in the 6th round. Just not going to expect anything more than that.

Because every team is in their honeymoon phase right now thinking they have a chance to win it all. But if their season starts the way I expect it to, I think by the trade deadline the new regime will recognize that they need to go all out to get a QB next year and they'll start collecting assets to make that a reality.

I expect the Titans to be pretty bad this year and with a new coaching staff they aren't tied down to any player on the roster. So genuinely I think Hopkins will be one of the big names moved at the deadline. It's the last year of his contract and they need draft capital more than they need 8 extra games out of him in a transition year.

Like Joe says, Smoot is probably a lock to make the roster. Camp bodies don't get four void years.

DeAndre Hopkins at the trade deadline 🤞

I went MVS because he can take the top off defenses. He's about as bad a rosterable player as you can get with that skill set, but it's a skill set we don't have on the roster right now. He is better than Mack Hollins.

I was told the Bills had Coleman and Legette with exactly equal grades on their board. They traded back with Carolina knowing they would still get one of those guys no matter what. What wasn't told to me but seems obvious is that the Bills had a cluster of WRs after Brian Thomas graded as high 2nd rounders, so they strategically moved down just enough to recoup their 3rd without sacrificing their ability to draft somebody from that cluster.

If Brady proves he is close to the offensive genius that is Kyle Shanahan, I agree the group of weapons inherently looks a lot better, especially since we have Allen not Purdy. I'm just not convinced Brady is close to that level. I'll say this though, I have more confidence that Brady - with a full offseason to install his own offense and coming off a couple years of NFL OC experience - will raise his coaching prowess substantially, than I do that say Mack Hollins will suddenly turn into a starting caliber outside WR. But like I said above we are talking about a LOT of best case scenario outcomes that need to come true for this offense to be at a championship level. Something like Brady proves he is a top 5 coach, Kincaid proves capable of being a #1 target, Coleman hits the ground running, Shakir proves he can take on like a 60% increase in his target share with a much smaller relative decrease to his target efficiency, and everyone on the OL stays healthy and plays the best football of their careers. I wish that instead of betting on several best case scenarios we had instead made it the priority of the offseason to over-invest in the offense because throwing a lot of talent at the problem would have been the easiest route to success. As it stands I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a post-6/1 or trade deadline addition of a legit talent. Otherwise the most likely outcome is that the offense is a bit of slog this year, we perform even worse in the playoffs than usual, and we enter 2025 still needing one major investment to take the offense to a championship level.

I'll keep repeating this point until it sinks in - The Chiefs offense was shut out in the 2nd half of the AFCCG and the 1st half of the Super Bowl. This is not something for the Bills to aspire to. We don't have the defensive coaching or personnel to turn that kind of offensive production into a Super Bowl win.

What is happening on this board? Does anyone remember that we had these exact conversations almost word for word last year, when the Bills WRs corps undeniably looked better than it does today? And now we're just going to trudge along pretending those discussions didn't happen and were definitively proven correct on the side of those that thought the group wasn't good enough? Allow me to re-enact the discussion. D̶e̶a̶n̶d̶r̶e̶ H̶o̶p̶k̶i̶n̶s̶ OBJ is washed and we don't need him. T̶r̶e̶n̶t̶ S̶h̶e̶r̶f̶i̶e̶l̶d̶ Mack Hollins is a better WR than people think. D̶e̶o̶n̶t̶e̶ H̶a̶r̶t̶y̶ KJ Hamler is an X-factor if healthy and focused. A̶n̶d̶y̶ I̶s̶a̶b̶e̶l̶l̶a̶ Chase Claypool has been stuck with bad QBs, we can unlock his talent. And don't forget about J̶u̶s̶t̶i̶n̶ S̶h̶o̶r̶t̶e̶r̶ Justin Shorter. And this year we don't even have a true #1 WR we can fall back on. Several best case scenarios regarding player development would have to come to fruition for this offense to even match the talent we had last year, let alone surpass it. The group that wasn't good enough last year is undeniably even worse this year, and the same people that defended it last year are repeating the same arguments from a worse position. Make it stop. Our one hope is that Beane executes a trade for a legitimate outside WR after June 1 or perhaps at the trade deadline. Maybe that's the plan all along. If instead the plan is to re-tool and coast through the year with lowered expectations, they should have at least added two WRs high in the draft. Watching two young studs grow on the field with Allen would have made a down year still exciting to watch, and given us something to really look forward to in 2025. Instead I fear that the regime has learned nothing and will continue surrounding their franchise QB with a just-not-quite-good-enough (or worse) supporting cast.

He wouldn't be behind any of those players IMO. And why did he go to Miami to play behind Hill and Waddle if that's his concern?

Not sure why everyone thinks he is totally washed. It's upsetting that Beane didn't think this type of talent was worth Deonte Harty money when our outside WR depth chart is the worst in the league. I just don't get it.

You thought literally any WR is what people were hoping for? We need a baseline outside starter. Claypool is a longshot reclamation project. He is closer to #90 on the roster than #53. This signing doesn't change anything about our needs, and I think you know that.

🤣

Well the goal isn't to control time of possession in the first half. The goal is to win the game. I'm not convinced the investments this regime has made on offense this offseason are enough to meet that goal. Maybe there is still something coming after June 1. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Not really. We threaded the ball control needle perfectly for a while there but it all fell apart on the final few drives and it required Allen to create magic several times just to keep us in the game. That offense we showed against the Chiefs is not close to a sustainable championship caliber offense.