racketmaster

Maybin to Rousseau is not a good comparison. Maybin struggled to keep weight on and was at the combine between 220-230lbs. Maybin had no ability to play on the inside and he was a straight line speed guy. Rousseau is taller, more arm length, heavier 260-270, and can play inside and out. He is much more like Buckner from the Colts than Maybin but time will tell.

Beane and Co. got a steal in drafting a 21 year old edge rusher like GR. First year playing DE as a 19 year old and he records 15.5 sacks. By all accounts, not only is he a freakish talent but has excellent character and intangibles. Bills really needed a young talent at this position and without drafting in the top 15 it is very difficult to find such players. Beane took advantage of the opt out as GR was a consensus top 10 pick going into last season before opting out. So the Bills get a top 10 talent at a premium position. Guys with his height, length, speed, ability to bend, play inside and out, with work ethic and character are steals at pick 30. Sure there is some risk but he is a superior talent to the other edge rushers we had to choose from and I think he is well worth the risk from only being a 1 year player.

I’ve never gotten the sense that the Bills were ever going to backup the truck to pay Milano. He has been an excellent 5th round pick but the Bills handed out big contracts to the core players in Dawkins and White from the 2017 draft. We have a defensive HC and part of what he brings to the table is identifying players that fit his scheme and coaching them up. We have seen this with the many defensive backs that have been developed in this system. There are several factors going against the resigning of Milano (1) as stated we just handed out 2 big contract extensions to players in his draft class and it is ideally a better strategy to try and space out the extensions as best you can (2) I think the regime is all in on Edmunds for better or worse and are setting aside the extension $ for him rather than Milano and there is no way a team should be paying big for 2 lbs unless they are absolute stud playmakers and perennial pro bowlers, (3) Bills are currently backed up to cap and want to extend Allen so there is little $ to go around to sign an outside lb to big $ that is not a sack or turnover maker (4) availability, Milano has had some injuries limiting his availability and it adds some hesitation to signing him to a long term deal and (5) and we saw with Milano out for extended time this year that the coaching staff was able to “coach” Klein up to the point that Klein was making plays all over the field after he had settled in. It all comes down to value and it just does not make sense as the key positions in today’s NFL are QB, pass rusher, CB, OT. Pass catchers and safeties would probably be next so positional value is also a factor. I wish Milano well and just hope Beane locates another “Milano” in this year’s draft as that is what is needed for sustained success.

It does not have to be an exclusively one or the other strategy so I don't mind if Beane pulls the trigger on a value trade or adds some value free agents. All areas should be utilized to improve the team. However, I think the draft needs to remain a high priority and that means keeping as many picks as possible. Most of the core talent of this team has come through the draft and with the Bills being in a situation where they will be paying their franchise qb and have been resigning key draft picks, the draft is where we need the cheap value players to continue to fill holes and be future core players. We cannot keep all our talent as is, I think Milano might be the type of talent that could walk out the door because we just cannot afford to meet his price. But he is an example of how the draft needs to work for us in that we got 4 very good years out of a 5th round pick at a fraction of the cost of most veterans. But I have no issue with adding undervalued veterans free agents as well to the roster as we need as much talent as we can get.

Because a team does not want to get into the habit of not accruing young, talented and cost controlled players. Hitting on first round pick is extremely important for continued and sustained success. If a team hits on a 1st round pick they technically get 4 bargain contract years along with a very reasonable 5th year option. Every time a team gives up 1st round picks for proven vets they almost certainly come with big contracts. The way the system works, very few veteran players on their second contract or requiring a second contract are considered true values. Diggs might be the odd situation where he had signed a fairly reasonable contract before the trade but even now there is a lot of talk about how underpaid he is and that his contract needs to be substantially increased resulting in less value. A team can only have so many top heavy players and using and hitting on draft picks is essential to maintaining success because drafted players are on cheap contracts compared to veteran players.

Honestly, I did not like the Davis move over Stills. Davis barely got on the field and did not look himself when he did. And McD answer was pretty weak in that he relied on the doctors and wanted to error on the side of giving the guys who played for him all year a chance to play in the game. You watched him all week and if he did not look himself, you have to put a healthy wr out there. This is not Diggs we are talking about where he could still be a decoy but a rookie. He clearly was not right and we clearly could have used some more juice at that position especially since Beasley and Brown have been taking turns breaking down as of late.

Singletary’s game looks much worse when we don’t have that true inside the tackle back that runs with power. Moss made some improvement over the course of the year and he was a big loss when he went down because we did not have another rb that was trusted to fill that role. Yeldon is is better than Singletary because he catches the ball better but he is still more of a finesse back. Williams could be a hammer but the coaches did not trust the rookie in the playoffs so our offense was severely handicapped. I mean, teams had no respect for our running game whatsoever after the Indy game. Singletary can pop a few runs here and there but defenses will take that and focus on stopping our passing game which they did. Whereas KC has the ability to hand the ball off to their rbs if we just play pure coverage. in sum, we need better play from our rbs next year and part of that might be just dressing 3 viable rbs instead of having this fascination with special teams players taking up game day roster spots.

Gabe looked like he was hobbling through his routes all night. Stills may have provided some explosion out there

Scat back, that is what he is. Losing Moss was huge as the Bills did not trust a replacement rb to run hard in between the tackles.

Thanks Singletary for the easy drop. Now we have sugar high Josh playing against laser focused Mahomes.

I like the play design. Fake bubble screen to Diggs and go deep to Stills!

Good for Frazier and Daboll but selfishly I'd like to have less distractions this week playing the Ravens. Both sides of the ball provide unique challenges (especially the Ravens offense) and we have not played them this year. I'd be less concerned if we were playing the Steelers as we just scouted and played them a few weeks ago. Plus, the Steelers are a much lesser opponent. I don't like the way we match up with the Ravens and they were the one team I was hoping to avoid before the Chiefs. Having both coordinators being focused on other opportunities does not help as we will need to have excellent game plans and execute them very well to win this week.

When is John Brown coming back? I don’t ever want to hear how many receiving options Allen has and how that is why he has been so good this year.

Josh Allen seemingly has to work hard and play better than most any player I can recall in recent history to get respect. The smart national media members have come around the last few weeks but there still seems to be a bewildering amount of caution when it comes to Allen's play: Here is just a few summaries of what I have heard on Allen today: 1) Mike Vick on Allen wanting Super Bowl and not being satisfied with division title - "Funny". He does go on to say he likes the confidence but I'm not sure why this is funny. Is there only one Super Bowl contender out there (KC) because if other teams are allowed to be in the discussion the Bills are the next team that should come up with all 3 phases playing well and having excellent coaching. I don't think the Bills chances of winning the SB this year is 'funny". 2) Nick Wright has dug in on his Allen hate and it is mostly laughable at this point. Being asked the same question as Mike Vick, Wright thinks the only way that Allen gets a Super Bowl t-shirt is to find one in Europe where the old shirts that were printed ahead of time end up. Because he is a troll he goes on to say that maybe Allen could find 4 other Bills SB champion shirts from the 90s in Europe as well. Wright is on par with Foxworth as he is just a tool when it comes to talking about Allen at this point. 3) Skip Bayless still chooses Baker Mayfield over Allen if starting a team from scratch today. Baker has been playing well this year since OBJ went down but let us not forget he has one of the best running games in the NFL. Everything on offense for the Browns starts with the running game and play action. The Bills offense revolves around Allen just like the KC offense revolves around Mahomes. Allen is the Bills offense and how he plays dictates how well the Bills play on offense while Baker can be off and the Browns can still pound you on the ground. Still plenty of others to praise Allen but I'm tired of all the caveats with Allen in describing his play. Here are some of the myths still out there: 1. Diggs has made Allen. Not true, Allen was already progressing steadily before Diggs got here. Did Diggs speed up the process, for sure, but Allen has actually elevated Diggs into what is by far his best season of his career. In truth, they have been a perfect match and have helped each other just like every other good wr does with their qb. Adams helps Rodgers, Hopkins helps Murray and Kelce and Hill help Mahomes. Take top weapons away and it hurts any qb but a lot of the media want to try an discount Allen because Diggs arrived this year. Allen has been a star in the making and Bills would have added another weapon or two if it were not Diggs. 2. Allen is surrounded by tremendous weapons. Ok, we just talked about Diggs and he is a top level wr. What are the other great weapons. Beasley will have his first 1,000 yard season this year and he has been typically a 600-700 yard guy. Allen has elevated Beasley to a level he has never been at before. John Brown had a career year with Allen last year and has been hurt a good portion of this year. Brown is a low level #2 or high end #3 wr in this league. Beasley is a very solid #3 that has been basically playing the #2 option for most of this year because Brown has been hurt. I like Gabe Davis but he was a 4th round rookie. He is not some special talent at this point and is a normal #3 or #4 wr option. Our tight ends have been inconsistent throughout the year in part because of their talent and in part because of injuries and illness. And our RBs are solid but they are no better than league average duo. In sum, I don't think Allen has been playing with some superior level of wr and rb talent around him. I get Mahomes is a made man at this point, but watch the games and you see how much talent is rolled out onto the field beyond Kelce and Hill. Watkins is practically an afterthought and they have speed in Hardman and Robinson who are #4 and #5 but could easily be #3s on most other teams. And yet, Mahomes is never discredited for having elite talent around him like Allen because Allen is so lucky to be surrounded by Diggs and Beasley. 3. Allen struggled after the hot 4 game start. His haters will say he disappeared for like 6-7 games after the hot start. But the national media has no clue what happened. First, Allen did not play poorly throughout this stretch and even had some excellent games such as the game against Seattle. The Titans and KC games were not great but he was not awful either considering the circumstances. What the media wants to ignore (even though they want to mitigate for other teams and qbs) was the covid issue that started with the Titans. There was a ton of uncertainty going into the Titans game as to when and even who we would play. Then we had to come back on a short week and play KC in a poor weather game (wind conditions). We got dominated on the ground and could not run the football. 2 bad losses but this was not all on Allen. Other games like the Jets, we just dominated and toyed with them. We lacked some aggression on offense for a few weeks following the TN and KC games but have rebounded nicely. The media does not understand that the Bills play to win football games and McDermott is not one of those coaches who tries to run up the score or play for stats. If games are out of hand, he is pulling starters and running the football like you should to avoid injury. There are a lot of other teams out there that take an extra series or two to run up stats whether they are winning or losing in garbage time situations. Allen plays in below average weather conditions and does not play for a coach who likes to accumulate stats in garbage time. 4. Allen has certainly gotten better this year but after a slow start last year, Allen was really progressing in 2019 and the Bills were a 10-6 team who took the foot off the gas at the end of the season. If you listen to the media talk about Allen's only playoff game, you would have thought he put up numbers similar to what Lamar Jackson did in his first 2 playoff appearances. Allen played well in the first half and yet the Bills tried to play conservative in the second half allowing Watson to get hot. Still Allen drove us down the field and got us to OT. We had a chance to win had we had a kicker with a bigger leg. Just because Allen threw a lateral that did not make it to Dawson Knox and really cost us nothing, does not mean he played horrible. But that is all you ever hear about that game is how out of control he was. Does anyone ever ask how did Allen play so poorly on the road against a good Texans team and yet we went to overtime and really had chances to win it had we had a better kicker. It is a complete myth that he played poorly in that game.

If there is anything that irks me about his show is that he spends the majority of his time talking about 5-6 big market teams. Most national shows are like this and Buffalo just is not a big market so I get it because it is about ratings on a national level. Dallas sucks but people love and hate them on national level and I guess it makes sense from a $ perspective to talk more about them More than they deserve.

Most media are about “hot takes” and instant reactions. Not a lot of perspective out there these days. I find Cowherd to be fairly accurate in his assessments in comparison to the talking heads out there like Skip Bayless, Nick Wright etc. Colin has come around the last few weeks on Allen but he has been a big fan of Sean McDermott for the last few years.

Bills getting more and more respect. Can’t remember another time in the last 20 years we have been ranked #1 by a national media personality, especially this late in season.

I have not been that impressed by Moss this year but he is a rookie and maybe he gets better as time goes on. Singletary has been looking better as of late so that is a good sign. If there is one thing I’d like to add is a medium to bigger sized speed back that can be used as a change of pace. Just another back that has an extra gear after hitting the hole and may be able to get some more chunk plays out of the running game. However, we don’t have that player on the roster and have reserved that for a special teams rb. The back I’m talking about does not even have to be that special but a perfect fit for this regime might be a player like Cordarllle Patterson who can play special teams and fill in at rb spot. He is a threat to break a long run. Another player that would fit the bill was a special teamer and now full-time rb in Raheem Mostert. Maybe we could identify a player like that can help in running game and special teams.

This makes sense and I agree that Diggs would likely not be on team if we had drafted let’s say Metcalf in place of Ford. I’m going to even throw out the trade up for Ford and not count that against the Bills and just pretend that we traded up for Metcalf. As much as I like Diggs, Metcalf is a young Megatron/TO. And while Diggs is really good, Metcalf has the ability to be a HOF type player if he continues to progress. Nevertheless, it would be basically a wash this year not having Diggs and having Metcalf instead (although they each have their strengths and weaknesses). However, if we had made the Metcalf pick the Bills would have also had a first round 2020 pick. We could easily have drafted Justin Jefferson and then had a wr corps of Metcalf, Brown, Beasley, Jefferson and Gabe Davis. That is a young and relatively cheap wr corps. Metcalf, Jefferson and Davis could be together for years on relatively cheap contracts. Plus, the Bills would have had extra 5th and 6th round picks to move up or add LB or secondary depth. And we would keep our 2021 4th round pick. Hindsight is 2020, but the Ford miss was huge in that we traded up for him giving up a 3rd and missed an opportunity to get a legitimate #1 wr in Metcalf or Brown that were universally seen as 1st or second round picks. And had we done that the Bills would not have been forced to give up a large amount of draft capital and cap dollars to acquire Diggs. It happens and at least Diggs is a top notch player and his contract is not bad at the present.

With Metcalf added to our team, we would be a true Super Bowl contender this year. With hindsight, I’d take Metcalf slightly over AJ Brown but either one of those guys would have helped take this offense to another level. Not only passing on them but trading up for Ford, definitely seems like a swing and a miss. Beane can’t win them all but somewhat troubled that he and the scouting staff seemed so enamored by Ford to trade additional assets for him and pass on wr talent that was desperately needed at the time.

There was no need to give up any more draft picks. If it makes you feel better just think of the Diggs trade and we did it earlier so he could assimilate to the team easier than a midseason trade would allow. Unless a team is just giving away a talented player then I would rather keep the draft picks. In order to maintain success we will need to have plenty of draft picks and to hit on a majority of them to keep cheap labor coming in as top heavy contracts begin to fill up this roster.

Hyde has been a good leader, but I just don't feel like there was anything missing with Marlowe in there yesterday. Marlowe ends up with 6 unassisted tackles and a fumble recovery to end the game. Maybe if NE had a better passing game we would have seen Marlowe exposed more in coverage but Hyde just has failed to make almost any impact plays the last 2 seasons. Hyde had 5 ints in 2017 while in 2019 and 2020 he has had just 1. I don't want to release players just to release them but going forward we need to start getting better value from the veterans we choose to pay as the cap situation requires it. Tough decisions need to be made and if they are not made then this team will not sustain any success. Good teams need to draft well and have young cheap talent constantly replacing the bloated veteran contracts.

Just not a fan and have never been as an NFL prospect. He must overcome being less than ideal height along with a lesser arm talent. He is not a great athlete and has been somewhat injury prone. I thought his ball placement would be better and even that was not very good but I would expect that portion of his game to improve. Overall, I'm not worried at all about Tua and in fact I am thrilled the Dolphins have decided to hitch their wagon to him for the next year or two at the least. What I am worried about is Lawrence ended up with the Jets as that could be a gamechanger in the division. Let's hope he stays in school another year to avoid the Jets.

That Cody Ford trade up looks worse and worse. I actually liked AJ Brown a little more than Metcalf but would have been happy with either in the second round. Not really sure what Beane and company were thinking as wr was a big need at the time and the draft fell our way (many had predicted Metcalf to us at 9) but we chose to go a different direction. Big miss by Beane but it happens to the best of them.