oldmanfan

Ok boys, let’s matriculate the ball down the field!

Duby just misses my top 5

While the contract he got was nuts, I don’t think anyone could have predicted his abilities would decline so dramatically so quickly.

My top 5 Bills receivers of all time (and I’ve seen them all): 1. Andre Reed 2. Jerry Butler 3. Stephon Diggs 4. Eric Moulds 5. Bobby Chandler I picked guys who spent a good amount of time in a Bills uni. Duby just misses out on this list. Guys like Owen’s, Lofton or Rashad could be on here for career performance but to me weren’t here long enough for my list. To me Andre has to be #1. To me he basically invented the slot WR position.

Yes. That means I graded them higher.

He was speeding apparently. He got pulled over and from what I can tell did not obey lawful orders. Why should he be treated differently than anyone else?

Knox on offense. The Fish will focus on Kincaid, we'll run a lot of 12 formation, Knox gets 2 TDs. Groot on D. He gets several sacks and constant pressure on Tua.

I think Alpha is a bit over the top with his grades. I give the WRs a solid B+ because they were getting open, and their blocking was very good. I'd give the RBs and TEs each a B. TE maybe B-, but clearly the Cards decided to take away Kincaid. And I think our friend Kirby Jackson is really suffering from a severe case of confirmation bias with respect to the WRs. I fear Kirby decided going into the season that the WRs would suck, and that nothing will change his mind. Like it or not, and clearly Kirby doesn't, the ball will get spread around a lot in Brady's offense, just as happened Sunday. Total yardage was lower primarily because of the defense not performing well in the first half thus taking away a lot of time from the offense.

27-20 Bills. McD has always figured out a way to slow down Hill, their O line is suspect so we should get to Tua, their two RBs are hurt, and their D is depleted.

I was going to bring this up. McD has a way of slowing down Hill.

Hard to say anything with an N of 1.

Solid debut

I thought Brady was a bit too predictable with his first down calls, a lot of off-tackle runs. I also would have liked to see Davis in there a bit more. But overall, when you score 34 points not much you can say. And yes, a lot was because of Josh being Superman again, but when you have Superman no need to apologize for it. Babich it's hard to say. Obviously, the D didn't do very well in the first half, then dominated the second. But were those alterations made by Babich or McD?

Brady said they would have a position less WR group. And that’s exactly what we saw today.

Ok boys, let’s matriculate the ball down the field!

https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/05/31/nfl-left-tackles-michael-lewis-blindside-right-tackles-left-defensive-ends#:~:text=Starting right tackles%2C on average%2C make barely half,offense’s right side%2C but so are the turnover-creators. An interesting article about right tackles being as valuable as left tackles. I'm a believer in building from the line out, so to me this deal works.

Got some young guys on D that need to step up.

Helluva comeback.

We disagree. And I suspect we will see victories outside for the Bills all year.

I think we have to see, and I think we have more weapons than you might imagine. Samuel for example has been restricted by lack of good QB play, and Brady can use him all over the field. Shakir is certainly intriguing given his finish last year. And I think everyone agrees about Kincaid. We’ll see a lot of motion, more play action, screens etc. based on the latter part of last year. One last point about Josh. People are worried about his prime but he’s got a lot of years ahead. If we run the ball effectively and if Josh learns to slide quicker he’s got plenty of time to win a few.

The Bills had what you would consider a true #1 in Diggs, and I would note that even with him they did not reach the promised land. And they don't have him now because, if you are to believe his words, he decided he needed to shake things up for himself (not that I think he was a true #1 -whatever that may be - the last part of last season). To me the only surefire way to get the kind of WR you want is to do so in free agency or trade. Only through those routes would you know whether a guy has it to be a force in the league. And because of Diggs and other contracts (like Miller's), they simply were not in the position to take a swing at a guy this offseason. They did get Coleman and we'll see what impact he makes. Could they have traded a bunch of picks and such to move way up in the draft? Sure. But then you are ignoring other positions such as safety that required upgrades this year. And again with no guarantees of a real hit. I am intrigued to see what Brady does with this group. I do think there will be a lot of WRs available in FA next year (I see Higgins in our future), and Beane will have funds to make a move. I disagree with your boundary guy concept but agree about matchups. And that is what Brady has to do, create favorable matchups that allow for guys to get open downfield. Previous coordinators, as well as Brady, did so by getting a guy like Cook or Davis matched against a LB, or Kincaid matched against a slower LB, and so on. So when you keep talking about boundary guys you lose me. Split Cook out and get him isolated against a LB, is he a boundary guy?

when did you overlook "or whatever"?

And if I wanted to take the time I could find way more examples of guys that were taken and never did anything in the league. Look at the guys we drafted. We just got rid of two older guys at safety so we drafted one of the best prospects at the position in round 2. Maybe we take a WR over Carter round 3. Davis in round 4 gives you another solid RB that can also catch. And once you get to round 5 it’s a crap shoot - you pick the best guy on your board. The success of this offense will not result upon some theoretical guy you want to dream up that they could have taken at WR on day 3. At best that guy would be fourth on the depth chart. This offense succeeds of fails based on Brady and how well he uses and schemes for the talent he has. Talent that includes now a pretty solid run game, one TE in Kincaid that looks really good and one in Knox that has shown he gets open in the red zone. Talent that includes a Swiss Army knife guy in Samuel that finally gets a QB, an emerging talent in Shakir, a rookie with size and good hands in Coleman, and three RBs that all have shown they can come out of the backfield and catch passes. Oh, and a pretty fair QB. So we’ll see what Brady does. He did pretty well last half of last year even with a declining Diggs and a hurt guy in Davis. I suspect we’ll see a lot of interesting things out of the offense this year. How many times over the years have we seen a guy like Know get open downfield? Or when Davis (no speed merchant) got free on the outside? It is about scheme more that just raw speed or whatever.

In terms of raw talent no. In terms of how they fit into Brady's offense yes. We'll see how it works, but apparently you just want to live in denial of what Brady has said. People keep saying this, but would picking up another WR is, say, round 3 or 4 really be much different than picking up some of the FAs we brought in this year?

I’m just telling you what Brady has said. But if you want to choose to ignore it fine.