HappyDays

Spent way too long thinking about this. After one week of preseason I have my hot takes ready. Bills: 1) Keon Coleman will lead the team in receiving yards and receiving TDs, and will crack 8 receiving TDs (Diggs is the only WR to do this in Allen's career). Coleman ended up finishing 2nd in receiving yards and TDs last year, which is crazy considering how poor he looked coming back from injury. I'm buying the reports from camp that Coleman has been Allen's favorite target and the connection has been getting better and better. Palmer upgrades the #2 spot but I think Coleman still takes the crown. 2) Shakir will end up 4th or lower in receiving yards. No disrespect to Shakir but towards the end of last season we saw defenses keying in on those easy button passes to him we were practically cheating with early on. His per game production dropped significantly in the final few games. I suspect the plan is to open up the downfield passing offense this year and Shakir will see his opportunities drop as a result. 3) No single player will match or exceed Rousseau's 8.0 sacks from last year, but the total number of team sacks will exceed last year's 39. I'll predict 45+ which would have ranked top 10 in the NFL last year. I expect a heavy rotation which will mean fresher bodies and will keep opposing OLs on their toes (or better yet their heels). Classic case of the sum will be better than its parts. NFL: 1) Jags 1st in the AFCS. This will be my boldest prediction by far. Every year I predict a worst to 1st team because it happens every year. Except, well, last year it didn't. And I just can't find one this year that I feel even a tad optimistic about. Chicago jumps out as the most likely (they were my pick last year too) but I am just not a believer in Caleb Williams at all so that spoils the idea. So that brings me to the Jags. Trevor Lawrence has not shown flashes of greatness in a couple years, but he is better than last year's performance. I expect Liam Cohen to get him back to at least in the conversation for top 12 QB. They have an elite young WR and maybe added another, and that alone goes a long way. They have an elite pass rusher and a very good CB, maybe two now. Overall they have all the elements of a team than can be a surprise. Part of this prediction is I just don't trust Houston. Everything was going in the wrong direction for them last year. I think their OL is a massive liability and we have seen poor pass protection sink plenty of otherwise strong teams. 2) Jets to finish 2nd in the AFCE. Okay maybe this is my boldest prediction. This offseason reeks of, dare I say it, competence in New Jersey. Aaron Glenn has come into town and closed down the circus. It reminds me somewhat of McDermott's first year in Buffalo, with the added bonus that the Jets also have a couple elite players at premium positions that can win them games. I am not a Justin Fields believer but he could be their Tyrod Taylor. The conference is way too strong now for them to sneak in as a wildcard like we did back then, but I could see them edging out New England and Miami in a division that ends up being surprisingly competitive below #1. 3) Other than the Jags replacing the Texans, all other playoff teams from last year will again make the playoffs. This almost feels like an anti-bold prediction, but it's practically unheard of to have that kind of consistency from one year to the next in a league that proclaims parity. But I feel like the NFL more than ever right now has a very clear upper class, middle class, and lower class. I don't see any of last year's lower class teams breaking through due to either below par coaching or below par talent, or both. Like I said earlier, last year was the first season in forever where no 4th place division team made it to 1st. The NFL landscape is pretty well settled right now and unless a top tier QB suffers a major injury I don't see much changing.

Joe Flacco won comeback player of the year over this. Good work Associated Press.

With 50 voters Mahomes and Burrow were the only unanimous Tier 1 QBs. I was wondering how Allen and Lamar got 3 votes and 4 votes respectively that placed them outside of Tier 1. Then I saw that 6 of the voters were former GMs and it clicked.

Oliver was very good and very disruptive in his limited snaps on Saturday. There have been good reports on him coming out of training camp too. I was the first to criticize him last year for looking unmotivated and playing soft. I'm hoping he came into this offseason with a better mindset and will play a lot better early on.

There's another rep in this clip: Yeah he looks as advertised. If he can just become a functional pass catcher he'll be a perfect TE3.

I'm not going to declare him a bust this early but that was as bad a debut as I've ever seen from a top 100 Bills pick. A player that Beane openly admitted he would have picked at #62 if we had kept that pick. He barely looked like a functional football player and he had a dumb mental mistake that cost his fellow rookie an interception. Admittedly I was never as high on him in the draft as a lot of other fans. I am big on movement skills when evaluating prospects. Stiff straight line athletes are not usually successful in the NFL. Size and strength can go a long way but he needs to develop some kind of pass rush repertoire or he will be out of the league in 2 years. Awful start but plenty of time to improve. I expect him to be a healthy scratch once Hoecht returns from suspension.

The reason it concerns me is it plays right into my fear that Tre isn't athletic enough to play the position anymore. In his prime he'd give up that cushion but he'd transition and close to make a play at the catch point. Unfortunately I don't think he has it in him to do that anymore... And if opposing offenses catch on they're going to pick on him on those exact routes. But no the solution isn't to re-sign Rasul Douglas who is similarly washed up. The solution is to wait for Hairston to get back and try to get him up to speed ASAP. And pray that Benford stays healthy because if he goes down we are in contention for the worst secondary in the NFL.

This is every pass rush snap from Walker/Sanders: Considering it is pretty much all quick passes which makes it difficult to have an impact, I thought they showed well.

You're over selling this narrative. A lot of those snaps were when players like Casey Rogers and Zion Logue were on the field. The top 4 DTs and top 4 EDGEs are what actually matter. I would bet by the time the season starts that will be Oliver/Jones/Sanders/Walker and Rousseau/Bosa/Epenesa/Hoecht (probably Solomon until Hoecht comes back which will be a notable weak link). Those players as a whole performed very well yesterday. I do remain concerned that the coverage will not be good enough for the pass rush to matter, and that includes the coverage scheme and play calling as much as it does coverage talent, but that's a different conversation. On the whole I feel really good about the talent Beane added to the DL this season. A lot of it will depend on Bosa staying healthy.

Hawes is ahead of him because of his blocking. That will be the TE3's primary job this year. His drop yesterday was brutal but he also had several blocking reps that looked like this: Davidson needed to catch every pass in his vicinity to have even a small of chance of making the roster.

There we were a few clean pass rush wins, the passes on those plays unfortunately just got off too quickly for the wins to matter. Here's 3 quick individual wins from Sanders and Walker: Bosa had a couple early on as well. My concern has been and continues to be coverage. Pass rush wins don't matter if the QB finds an open man within 2 seconds.

Hoecht isn't getting cut, he's on a 3 year deal and the team knew about the suspension before they signed him. Ogunjobi I wonder about though. The team didn't know about his suspension until after signing him and it's just a 1 year deal so easier to get out of. They kept 4 DTs last year and 5 DTs in 2023. Oliver, Jones, Walker, Sanders, Carter, Ogunjobi makes 6 so there has to be an odd man out there. Ogunjobi has barely been mentioned in training camp reports and today there was a noticeable decline in interior pass rush when he replaced Sanders. So what is his path to the roster? Either we surprise cut or trade Carter, or there is an injury in the room before Ogunjobi's suspension is up. If neither of those things happen I think we might just cut him after his suspension ends and he'll have no one to blame but himself.

Man I don't know. That comeback he gave up to Wandale Robinson was scary. My worry with him has been that he just no longer has the athletic ability to transition and close on plays like that. If opposing offenses catch on they're going to eat him alive. This scheme has made the likes of Levi Wallace and Dane Jackson function at CB2 but we had prime Hyde and Poyer there to cover for them. The secondary as a whole right now remains a big concern for me. We don't even know how Bishop looks, him and Rapp can't stay healthy, Hamlin still has major athletic limitations that showed up again today, and CB2 remains a weakness unless Hairston comes back strong. It is Benford and a lot of unknowns. Hopefully the pass rush is as good as I think it can be to make up for the coverage.

I'm actually expecting some changes this year in that regard. Which is why I'm really not fretting over the drive results or the 3rd down conversion percentage from this game. The coaching additions we made this year combined with some of the training camp reports heavily imply that we'll be moving to more 5 man fronts and run more stunts. Today we saw none of that but I'm sure that's intentional - no reason to put new schematic wrinkles on tape in August.

I hate to say it but Tre White is a big arrow down. I'm rooting for him but today's performance made me revert to my original thought that he is unfortunately just washed. He cannot be trusted to cover quick WRs 1v1. Giants picked on him repeatedly. Not that Dane Jackson was any better. I hope Hairston gets back healthy soon and can figure things out quickly because I fear CB2 will be a major weakness for us this year unless he saves the day. As others have mentioned the primary DL players impressed me, most notably Bosa, Walker, and Sanders. Bosa's potential in this defense if he can stay healthy is tantalizing. He's flown under the radar but today showed flashes of his old self and at his best he was an elite EDGE. We may have gotten a steal there. Knock on wood.

I think he's looked pretty fast out there. He hasn't popped out in a bad way at least.

Hancock has been playing everywhere in the secondary

All Frank Gore Jr does is make plays. Same as last year's preseason.

Agreed. On one hand I get it, it's like no one really trusts him to be consistently healthy so it's hard to get overly excited. But on pure talent he is our most talented DL. Like it's possible we added a top 10 EDGE and no one is really talking about it. Early returns in this game were great. Just stay healthy.

Yeah Landon Jackson is having a brutal game. Very long way to go. And the fact he is still out there when his fellow rookies Sanders and Walker are on the bench is telling.

The army captain Ciarlo has made more plays than any depth player in this half.

Lol Mike White