HappyDays

There's Allen's new favorite target

Poona has been nowhere to be found throughout training camp or preseason. Looking like another free agent dud on the defensive line, unfortunately.

So when you said that if Isabella makes the roster Sherfield won't, you were not directly inferring a connection between their spots on the roster? You know what, I'm good here. Carry on.

We know exactly what's going through the coaches' minds. Sherfield was taken off the field with the primary starters like Davis and Kincaid and much of the starting OL. That tells you how highly they think of him. As of right now he is locked into what the Bills call WR4, the same role Davis had as a rookie. He'll split time in the slot and outside and he'll be asked to block quite frequently. Isabella will have a completely different role from Sherfield if he makes the team. I have no clue why you think their roster spots are connected in any way. They're pumping up his trade value by taking him off the field after two series in which he got one stupid target? You're on your own with this one, man.

The guy that came off the field against the Colts at the same time as Gabe Davis has exactly a 0% chance of getting cut.

Oh enough with Isaiah Hodgins. He would not have made a lick of difference against the Bengals. He is going to spend his career bouncing around different teams as the 5th or 6th WR on the depth chart. Nothing wrong with that career but waiving him was not a huge whiff on our part. We signed Beasley because Crowder was injured and Josh had no faith in McKenzie or Shakir to be where he expected them to be. This year that spot will mostly be held by Kincaid and Harty who are both massive upgrades on the slot options we had last year (pending Harty staying healthy). Gilliam is very important because he fills three roster spots in one. You aren't considering the opportunity cost of losing him. We would have to keep other less talented players to fill his roles. So that would leave less room on the roster for depth WRs, not more. If it comes down to it keeping Isabella over Shorter is an easy decision. Why would we even need to consider cutting Gilliam?

This is literally the main purpose of the forum...

This is the earliest gameday thread I've ever seen.

I'm saying the exact opposite. I'm saying that scouting the player is the only thing that matters. Pointing to recently highly drafted TEs is not scouting Kincaid. Without context most historical draft data is totally meaningless. Like, why do you think Trey McBride's stats have any bearing at all on what Kincaid will do?

Hopefully the Bills social media team posts this video.

Has a player ever gotten a press conference this late in the offseason and not made the team? 🤔

Three things I'm looking for from Josh Allen in this game: 1) Stiff arm at least one LB 2) Hurdle at least one DB 3) Get in a defensive lineman's face after plowing through him head first for a 1 yard gain on 3rd and 9 Football is back!

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.