HappyDays

I'm not giving up on Elam yet. He has had game changing interceptions in three games despite very limited playing time - one against the Chiefs in the regular season, and two in the playoffs against the Steelers and Dolphins. So he arguably has more game changing plays in the playoffs than any other defensive player on the roster, which is kind of sad, but in any case I don't want to give up on that kind of talent. I suspect with John Butler moving on and no major CB investments that the coaching staff is planning to give him a real shot at winning a starting job. At worst he is likely to be our #3 IMO.

He's practically a lock IMO. The only player to receive guaranteed money and not make the roster under this regime was OJ Howard. Also we used 4 void years on Smoot's contract. It is his spot to lose.

Same exact coaching staff is back so I very much doubt it, but I'll keep my fingers crossed. This coaching staff has a history of choking in the playoffs when we have a lead. They don't finish. Eventually you just have to accept that's who they are. The main difference between us and KC is that on the critical play of the game, they don't have a miscommunication between their special teams coach and their kicker. They don't leave their opponent's best defensive player 1v1. In those critical moments they are completely buttoned up, and that's where we fall behind more than anything.

I know that play has been re-litigated to death but I'm still mostly upset at our coaching staff for leaving Chris Jones 1v1 on a designed shot play. We got the coverage we wanted, it was a TD waiting to happen, Allen just needed another half second. These small details in critical moments is why we can't get over the hump and that falls on coaching.

You know what makes me feel better? Imagining that we took Van Pran-Granger in the 4th and Ray Davis in the 5th. If we had done it in that order I'll admit I'd have zero complaints.

This is why character does matter in the draft process: That's from Bob McGinn's scouting notes from last year.

Yes like I said the 5th year option gave us an extra two months to negotiate with him or finagle the minor details. You're saying without that the deal would have just totally fallen through? It's not like we gave him a record breaking extension that required weeks of sleepless nights. I would guess the terms were mostly set a few months before the agreement was officially reached.

When he trades up a couple spots yes I believe him. I don't remember him saying that about Rousseau for example, or over selling the Coleman pick as someone they were specifically targeting. One thing Beane always has been steadfast on is that he follows his board. I know that's true just based on his actions. If his last player in a certain tier is still hanging around he will try to trade up slightly for them (Elam, Kincaid, attempting to trade up for Bishop). If he has several players at equal value in that tier he will stick and pick. If that tier is wiped out on his board he will try to trade down.

There's a difference in being coy about your future plans and lying about past results. Beane shoots straight when he talks about what he's done and why he's done it. Like I said there's no reason to lie about wanting Bishop. It doesn't make him look any better or worse in the moment, it only sets him up to look better or worse depending on how the player turns out.

I don't think Coleman was "our guy" but he was definitely one of a cluster of guys that we had graded as high 2nd rounders. For all the talk of the WR class there were only four that were seen as consensus 1st rounders. I always thought trading back into the 2nd and recouping a 3rd in the process, then taking the best WR available, was the best possible outcome. If there's anything to take away from this Embedded video it's that GMs including Beane don't have a strict vertical board they're following where they're just ticking off names one after the other and taking the absolute BPA when it's their turn. They are grouping guys into tiers and taking someone from their Best Available Tier (BAT?) who also fills a need.

Uh, yes? We extended him before his 5th year option officially kicked in. Maybe it gave us an extra two months to negotiate, but that's all. Like I said, it's a bargaining chip. The same effect can be had by using the franchise tag if you really need it. The 5th year option is most useful for players like Edmunds or Rousseau where you're not quite sure what you have and you want that one extra year of tape to see if they're worth extending. No, they did it for the same reason Minnesota swapped one pick with NY at #10 - they got scared we would trade back with someone else (likely aided by a bit of salesmanship from Beane) and they would lose out on getting their guy. This happens all the time. Again, look at the trade value chart. #31 to #32 is -6 points. #32 to #33 is -4 points. #33 to #34 is -5 points. Teams are telling you that the 5th year option is worth less than the drop off in total contract value.

Why should it have taken an overpay? KC allowed us to recoup our 3rd rounder for a player they were likely to get anyways. There was no massive bidding war for our pick. Why would we dig our heels in the sand only to get the same exact outcome for both teams but with us still having no 3rd rounder? It was an easy decision and I'm glad Beane did it instead of playing scared of the boogeyman. What analytics guy and points according to what draft value chart? The Rich Hill model has been proven to be more accurate than the old Jimmy Johnson model. I very much doubt that giving up exact equal value on that chart goes down as the "4th worst trade value ever." That's inherently absurd. https://www.drafttek.com/NFL-Trade-Value-Chart-Rich-Hill.asp?RequestTeam=Buf

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.