HappyDays

I feel very good about our interior. McGovern, Morse, Torrence, Bates, Edwards; you could take multiple versions of that group and turn it into at least a solid starting interior. If any one of those players gets injured we can manage. Tackle is still the big question mark. I weirdly feel more optimistic about Brown than Dawkins right now but hopefully Dawkins has finally gotten himself into shape after a full training camp. More concerning than the starters is the depth. If Brown or Dawkins goes down for more than just a few snaps, which is not a particularly improbable scenario, we are in deep trouble. I don't expect anyone on the OL to set the world on fire, I just want solid starters at each position for the whole season. That would be at least a 40% upgrade on what we had last year.

No. A player with Kincaid's exact skill set, background, etc. has NEVER been drafted. I don't mean that he's a generational talent, I mean every player's unique traits are ultimately going to define them. Player comps are fun but they don't actually mean anything. You're throwing out names like Ebron and Hockenson and Pitts and I'm telling you that none of those players' careers mean anything to what Kincaid will do. Every single player that ends up successful in the NFL is an outlier. Almost every player that ends up successful you could point to some aspect of their profile that had never ended up successful before. In this case you're using a broad brush of "1st round TEs" which has an extremely limited sample size to go off of. Nonsense. Cole Beasley was on the field for 73% of offensive snaps in 2020 and 66% in 2021. He wasn't asked to block. We're a high volume passing offense. The best pass catchers are going to be on the field most of the time. I'm not predicting he actually gets 70% of the snaps by the way, they are going to make sure he is given ramp up time to acclimate to the pros. But his liabilities as a blocker will not keep him off the field. That scouting report on Kelce is not an accurate depiction of the player he became. The Chiefs rarely use him as a run blocker, he has become quite explosive, and he comes out of his breaks as well as any TE I've ever seen. When people compare Kincaid to Kelce, they're referring to Kelce's current skill set and role in the Chiefs offense. Obviously expecting Kincaid to become the GOAT TE at any point in his career, let alone as a rookie, is not realistic. But there are some comparative traits: -Elite hands -Good breaks out of his route -RAC ability -Instincts to work open in zone coverage and make himself available for his QB You seem to think that when people compare him to Kelce they're predicting he will have the same type of career. That isn't it at all. Ertz is another fair example, although personally I see more RAC ability from Kincaid than I ever saw from Ertz. Teams had concerns about the back injury he suffered in college.

The truth is I don't care about other TEs that have been drafted. Their success or failure has nothing to do with Kincaid. It's no different than when you tried to claim earlier in the thread that because 12 personnel league-wide is not very common, that means we shouldn't expect it to be common in our offense. None of that data matters at all. Before Josh Allen there were no <60% completion QBs from the Mountain West that ended up being successful. Picking out data from entirely different players in entirely different circumstances tells us nothing about the specific player in question. It's telling that not once have you actually used any evaluation of Kincaid himself to downplay your expectations about him, just data from other teams and other players. Everything we've heard is that Kincaid is constantly with the 1st team offense, he's separating, he's making himself available to the QB, he's finding soft spots in zone, he's catching everything. Plus he played in a pro style multiple TE sets offense at Utah and was an older prospect which means his development track is already ahead of schedule. You're throwing out all of that evidence because of a completely different player drafted by the Lions nearly a decade ago? That's poor analysis. One factor I think you are severely underestimating is Kincaid's cerebral abilities. That is what makes Kelce great, as much or more than his physical skills IMO. Kincaid on his college tape and apparently throughout training camp shows a knack for working himself open in zone coverage. I think that gives him a huge edge as a player beyond what other former prospects may have offered.

Shorter needs to prove himself on special teams to make the roster. I watched his special teams snaps against the Colts and came away unimpressed. Personally if Shakir continues to have issues catching the ball and separating I would trade him for whatever I could get right before final cut downs. I don't think the Bills will actually do that though.

No we're not. We're trying to tell you he will be a significant contributor in his rookie season. You'd have to ignore pretty much everything we've heard about him coming out of the draft and throughout training camp to think otherwise. Knox and Kincaid could not be more different as players. Now you're just saying random crap. I know your desire was for us to draft a 3rd round LB in the 1st round, but don't let your pre-draft feelings about Kincaid color your opinions. We have a lot of new information since he was drafted. Whatever expectations you had it's time to modify them.

Couple updates from Matt Parrino: Could we be so lucky as to have unlocked Isabella's potential in his 5th season? I'm still leaning towards it being a mirage until proven otherwise but there's at least a chance the hype is for real.

Andy Isabella 📈

He wasn't able to separate against the Colts backups. I also went back and watched his special teams snaps, to me he looks lumbering as a gunner and not especially competitive. Special teams was his best path to the roster IMO. The only reason his roster spot is still hanging on by a thread is because he was a 5th round pick this year. But I think this year even that won't matter as much as it did in previous years. At that point in the draft Beane was trading down as much as possible, it appeared to me that his draftable grade board was already wiped out by the time they took Shorter. There's a prevailing belief on this board that later day three picks are going to get a lot of time to prove themselves. The reality is that the depth of this roster is about as competitive as it gets, so you either show something to build on or you're gone.

"Up to" leaves a lot of room for the real number, but anything over the vet minimum is an overpay IMO. This feels like a classic post-Brady Patriots move which looks stupid on paper and ultimately reveals itself to be stupid in reality.

I'll be looking for 5 major things: 1) I want Torrence getting all the reps with the 1s. I don't need a faux competition where Bates gets reps because it's "his turn." We already know who Bates is as a player. Give Torrence a chance to prove he can capably start for this offense. If he fails the test no big deal, go back to Bates. 2) I'll be keeping an eye on Van Demark and Gouraige with the 2s/3s. I liked what I saw out of both of them against the Colts. Let's see if it's for real. 3) On Dorian Williams, I'll be watching how he does shedding blocks and filling run gaps. He struggled with that against the Colts. Until he can capably perform those tasks, he is not a realistic option at MLB. A little progression in those areas from last week is all I'd like to see. 4) My hunch is Isabella's performance against the Colts is fool's gold but I'd like to see him be rewarded with more playing time at least. He impressed me more than Shakir. I would even give him a couple reps with the 1s, let it be known that the competition for starting slot receiver is still wide open given Shakir's inconsistency there. 5) Epenesa - show up on the stat sheet this time. Basham - prove that he can build on last week's strong performance. Ford - we've heard nothing about him at camp and he was behind Settle on the depth chart, it's time for him to show the kind of impact we paid him for. We can't afford another free agent dud on the defensive line.

That's why Kincaid was mostly unnoticeable in this game. The coaching staff intentionally gave him assignments that they know he is weak at. They already know what he can do as a pass catcher, they are just fine tuning the rest of his game. On the two plays shown above he didn't exactly dominate his man but he did enough to keep them out of the way. For a player that will almost exclusively be a slot receiver that is good enough IMO.

Just to put this on the record... those catches were not "spectacular." They were good catches and good plays but ordinary at the NFL level. If he hadn't made one of those catches it would still have been considered a drop, they did not require a superhuman effort. I think Shakir's tiny arms make some ordinary catches LOOK spectacular.

Bills had a light practice today.

The other interpretation of this is that McDermott doesn't want to praise a rookie too much, to make sure he keeps working for it. He has sounded similarly guarded when talking about Kincaid. "He's done some nice things but still a long way to go." It's generic coach speak, I wouldn't read anything into it.

Sure, I believe catching is something that anybody can get better at, although some are just naturally more or less gifted. But there has been zero progression there from Shakir. It was an issue in college, he had 2 drops on 20 targets in the regular season last year, he had an awful momentum-shifting drop against the Dolphins in the wildcard round, he reportedly has struggled with drops at camp this year, and now he had 1 drop on 3 targets yesterday. Shakir is a 5th rounder with a limited physical skill set. Players like that don't get years to turn it around. The only reason he gets any hype at all from Bills fans is because he was projected to be drafted higher than we got him so the perception is that we got a steal. Instead, we are seeing why teams were lower on him than the amateur draft community. Ideally for a starting slot player you want Mr. Reliable. That's what Beasley was for us before his athleticism fell off a cliff. If not Mr. Reliable, you want someone that is extremely explosive. That's what Harty will hopefully be for us. Shakir as of right now is neither of those. He's just a replacement level slot player the likes of which can be found on the waiver wire every year.

The problem is that that "1 bad drop" has been who he is as a player since Boise State. You can't have a double digit drop percentage and be successful in this league, not unless you are the elite of the elite in some other skill. Shakir is a pretty good route runner, he's pretty good with the ball in the hands, but he has below average physical abilities and abysmal hands (relative to the league standard). If we take away the draft hype around him, that is the profile of a player that should be firmly on the roster bubble.

Thank you as usual Gunner. Your offseason content remains unparalleled. Some thoughts of my own: 1) In preseason you can almost read as much into who isn't used as who is used. For example Kincaid was used to the same degree as Gabe Davis which tells me the team is very comfortable with him already and he will immediately see a big role in the offense. Based on camp reports this is not a surprise, but it's still good to see confirmation. Similarly Sherfield was off the field at the same time as the primary offensive starters so his roster spot is guaranteed. I've seen some fan rumblings recently that Harty may not be a roster lock, however his skill set was not displayed on offense in this game which I think means he is completely safe. He has a defined role as an explosive gadget player at least and can perform that role far better than anyone else on the roster. Similar to my thoughts on Kincaid's usage in this game, I think the team is fully comfortable with what Harty can do so they are waiting to put his role on tape in games that matter. 2) I too was impressed by Van Demark's play. I specifically focused on him and he more than held his own. At LT I didn't see any bad reps. I lost track of him on a couple of his RT reps but the one I did see was a win for him. Maybe the Bills got lucky and found a steal here. He will be my depth player to watch over the next two games. 3) Color me terrified about the MLB position. I remember last year when Edmunds missed time, people said "see his replacements aren't good enough, this is proof we need to re-sign him" and my response was always "don't worry, we will find a capable replacement, Beane isn't foolish enough to let his 2022 backups take over the job in 2023." Well here we are and we have done exactly that. Our main competition Mahomes and Burrow will absolutely pick you apart in the middle of the field if you let them, and I fear that we will be totally vulnerable there. In my mind I'm scrambling for answers but there really aren't any. The defense looked BAD when Edmunds wasn't out there last year. His absence kicked off the Vikings' improbable comeback. The more I think about it the more uneasy I become. 4) On a night where much of the DL from the top to the bottom of the roster showed out, where was Epenesa? I don't have snap counts but I know he was out there and his name is literally missing from the box score stat sheet. I don't recall him having a single QB pressure. For someone that is exclusively a situational pass rusher and leaves you vulnerable on run downs, he needs to show more over the next two games to prove he can have a meaningful role on this defense. 5) On Elam's penalty, agreed that it was somewhat ticky-tacky but we are going to see officiating crews that call those, and I worry that Elam will be a total liability in those games. All along I have questioned why the coaching staff has favored the limited Dane Jackson over Elam but I'm beginning to see why. They at least know what Jackson brings to the table on a play by play basis. With Elam it is more of an adventure. I think it is Jackson's job to lose at this point and Elam will be used situationally.

Rousseau. His Offside penalty was annoying but overall he was very active today. The reports on him from camp have been very promising.

Looked hesitant at first, like he was still thinking instead of reacting. But he looked fast and was a sure tackler at every opportunity. His run stuff on 2nd and goal was a great play. Probably not going to contribute much if at all this year, but I saw some promise for the future.

I thought Dodson looked very rough today. Not much we can do about it now, we are going to have to try and scheme around the weakness.

Barkley better get 2nd team reps next week. If he hasn't earned the opportunity, Allen has given it away.

Van Demark is in at RT now. Just had another very strong rep. I have a new preseason crush.

I'm not 100% sure on this but I think we lose our 3rd round comp pick next year if Keenum doesn't make it for a certain amount of time on the Texans. So trading for him would be contrary to our own interests, unless I am mistaken.