HappyDays

Doesn't sound season ending, but more info needed:

Bosa, Hoecht, Sanders, Walker. That's where the improvement needs to come from and I expect it to. I think each of those players will be more impactful than their counterparts last year. If fans are skeptical Bosa will stay healthy, I get it. That's a genuine question mark and we'll just have to hope he doesn't miss any extended periods of time. Ditto for Milano staying healthy because we all know how much of an impact he makes when he's himself. The most obvious path to improvement from last year is the 3rd down defense. We ranked 30th giving up 44.5% of 3rd downs last year. I don't have specific stats on 3rd and medium/3rd and long but I would bet the discrepancy on those compared to the rest of the league would look even worse. To my eyes poor pass rush in those situations was a big problem. So we really just need our new collection of pass rushers to show up on those downs and get our opponent off the field. Even if the secondary is just as mediocre as it was last year, the DL impact will be the difference.

Yeah the reaction to that game has gone way overboard. I think Ben Johnson decided to actually do a little game planning, to make his offense look good and give his team some confidence. Not a bad tactic for a first year head coach. So he called plays that attacked the middle of the field where he knew our depth LBs couldn't hold up in coverage. Our coaches on the other hand did nothing of the sort. I remain optimistic that there will be some real changes made to the scheme and play calling this year, and I'm a believer in the investments we made on the DL. None of those changes are going to be apparent until September though. If it looks same old same old against Baltimore than we can start to panic.

So get the #1 seed. Get a whole week off to rest up and then likely avoid the Ravens or Chiefs in the divisional round. We've had our opportunities to get it but every year we have these multi-game slumps that kill our chances. This year especially we have our best chance in a while because Ravens and Chiefs both have harder schedules. I think 14-3 gets us the #1 seed this year. So go get it. If we don't and we lose a player in the wildcard game or a hard fought divisional game, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Damn this would be the 2nd year in a row they lost their 1st rounder to a knee injury, if it's as serious as it looked.

Whelp I probably should have added that one caveat...

I don't think Beane's miss rate is bad compared to the rest of the league, if anything I'd wager it's better than most because of the number of starting caliber players he's found in the mid and late rounds of the draft. His problem is that he hasn't drafted a truly great player yet, a game changer. That's where the other top GMs in the league have him beat one and all.

They'll bring the cart out for anything at practice, no point in risking it.

Hairston just needs to be a hit this year, we can't afford for him to struggle or be injured all year. And honestly I've been thinking that would need to be the case even before Tre's injury today. Obviously hoping for good news but it was always likely he would get hurt or not be able to perform. As much as the DL got all the attention last year, my take was that the secondary was the bigger problem. My concern is that if Hairston isn't ready the secondary hasn't improved at all. That will make it harder for the DL to have an impact. I loved Hairston as a prospect but he needs to get back out there soon so we can see where he's at. If he isn't ready and Tre's injury is bad then I would begrudgingly welcome Rasul Douglas back because he at least gives us a baseline.

Probably nothing but worth keeping an eye on:

Best case scenario early in the year is Sanders and Walker at least make an impact on 3rd downs. That alone would represent a huge improvement from last year. On the whole our defense last year was about average if you mix a few different metrics together. The one factor that really dragged the performance down was 3rd down conversion where we ranked 30th at 44.5%... And I'm sure we all remember the numerous 3rd downs where the QB was sitting back comfortable with plenty of time to find an open man. Sanders and Walker both have looked good when they've been able to pin their ears back and penetrate and get after the QB. So neither of them are going to blow up the stat sheet this year but I could see them having a sneaky big impact in that one critical area. Landon Jackson doesn't look like he'll contribute much if anything this year. He looks to be on the DeWayne Carter track of not dressing on gamedays and then you just hope he develops next offseason. Hairston's impact will entirely depend on how White performs. His problem will be that the staff trusts White and it's not like Hairston was seizing the job during training camp, so it would probably take some combination of White looking like a liability and Hairston quickly progressing in practice for him to get on the field in the back half of the season.

From what I've heard any team that signs him now would have to put him on IR right away... Physically he isn't ready yet. If he wants to hang out in Buffalo and use our renowned training facilities and be there as our break glass in case of emergency option, I'd have no problem with that.

So Bishop is still getting the 1st team reps in practice at least.

Trust me I know it's not a popular opinion, but it's how I've felt for a while. Safety to me is a position that shouldn't be drafted in the first 2 rounds, and if you do draft one they better be a total stud. To me the first 2 rounds are about premium positions with high end athletic traits. Safety is not a position where I care as much about athleticism. Obviously I'd prefer to have better than Hamlin out there but I'm also not panicking over it. Agree to disagree on this one Alpha.

On the all-22 watch Hancock to my eyes had a few mistakes that led to coverage busts. Hard to know for sure without knowing the play call but that's how it looked. He also gave up a TD because he didn't get enough depth in the endzone. I will say though those issues are all fixable with experience and time in the film room. My growing concern with Bishop on the other hand is that he just isn't a natural football player. That position requires an instinctive feel for what's going on around you in real time, and every time I watch him play it looks very robotic like he's thinking instead of just reacting. NFL history is littered with busts who failed for that exact reason. Hancock doesn't look robotic to me, he just looks like he needs time.

Guys like Hamilton and Reed are rare talents where the cerebral traits match the athletic traits, which is what made them 1st round picks. Starks was known for his instincts too, of course it remains to be seen how good he is in the NFL. Hyde and Poyer were not premium talents but they gave us elite safety play. That was my point.

I think it was a mistake to ever draft one high. These days, and especially in McDermott's scheme, the safety position is mostly about cerebral traits. All else being equal you'd prefer to have a high end athletic talent there of course, but that's not as important as the safety understanding their responsibilities and hitting their landmarks. That's where Hamlin despite his athletic limitations still beats out Bishop. Hyde and Poyer were 5th and 7th round picks respectively. Hyde had a 4.73 RAS score, Poyer had a 5.32. I don't know why this regime decided a top 64 pick with athletic traits but under-developed instincts and technique was the direction we needed to go.

Yeah I don't expect them to sign someone else. It is going to be Bishop or Hamlin almost certainly. The takeaway is that after an entire offseason where Bishop seemed locked in as the starter, he has fallen out of favor and is now in an open competition. You can't just live with mental mistakes that directly lead to TDs. They've given him every chance and he hasn't seized the opportunity.

Bad sign for Bishop:

Wow. You so callously spit on Grant DuBose's hopes and dreams?

I don't know if he's even healthy enough to play yet. When he visited Pittsburgh earlier this year he didn't pass their medical checks. I hope we are bringing him in just to do our due diligence in case we need him in an emergency situation later in the year. The offense immediately became more efficient and less mistake prone when Brady took over and started diverting targets away from Davis. I have very little interest in bringing his high variance play style back into the fold. I guess if he's used in a very very limited role I'd be okay with it.

The only time KC "targeted" him in the AFCCG was when we foolishly had him in 1v1 man coverage on Xavier Worthy out of the slot. Easy TD. That isn't a Hamlin issue though, that is a scheme issue. Other than that KC was moving the ball at will for many many reasons that had nothing to do with Hamlin's performance. Every defense has at least one player they are trying to hide, it's simply not possible to have 11 above average starters. Having that one player be a safety is about as good an outcome as you could hope for. There's almost no scenario I can envision this year where Hamlin is the reason our defense underperforms. If everything else is working the way it's supposed to, our defense heavy coaching staff should easily be able to work around his limitations. If they can't, that's a larger conversation that I really hope we don't need to have this year.

I'm going to be the only Bills fan totally unconcerned about the safety position when the season starts. I will die on this hill. It's the easiest position on the defense to hide which is why I never liked the idea of drafting one high last year. If Bishop continues to be a liability, they'll put Hamlin out there and we'll be fine. He's slow and he's a mediocre tackler but he goes where he's supposed to and that's 80% of the job. KC had an elite defense last year with Bryan Cook as one of their starters and he wasn't any better than Hamlin. We need our DL to be a lot better than last year, we need our CB2 to be an improvement on Rasul Douglas, and we need Milano to stay healthy. If all of those things happen Hamlin will be functional and we'll barely notice that he's out there.