BullBuchanan

I'd rather bring back the QB who holds kicks so that we can credibly fake it on occasion.

This one is gold.

It would be, if he were a bonafide #1. He's more of a top end #2, imo. I'm not sure he's an upgrade over Diggs even considering age.

Aggregate scoring both defense and offense doesn't mean much to me when you're an elite team. All good teams are going to play a lot of weak, non-playoff teams throughout the year. How you stack up against elite teams matters a lot more, but timing is probably the most important thing of all.

I don't like ever paying a CB big money, because you need at least 4 of them.if you have a star ona rookie deal, you can go out and get a premier guy and then fill the bottom of your depth chart with C-tier guys and you can probably still have an elite defense. You go out and pay Benford $20M and now you have Ingram as your #2 battling it out with a rookie. Even if you get decent CB play, there's still 2 more receiving threats open on any given play. I'd rather have solid Cb play and an elite man up front or on the back end. Yes, I would have signed any of the players listed above to the deals they received and kept Benford on his rookie deal for another year.

Yes, I'm complaining. Is there another option if you disagree with the approach our front office has taken? How many Super Bowls do we have over the last 5 years? How many times have we been? For me, the hope is all in the hands of rookies and guys who were disappointments last year like Carter, Bishop, Coleman, Kincaid, etc. I'll be making up scenarios for these guys to become all-pros like I used to in the drought years.

Hufanga, Holland, Milton Williams, Metcalf and even Reddick would have represented the potential for elite play at positions of dire need and they were all available. I'm sure there are other trades that were possible that didn't materialize as well. I understand the reluctance to be critical of Beane's approach because all the players he re-signed are very good football players. It's hard to look at a team with a lot of good players on it and think it's a poorly constructed roster. I hope the board is right that building a team with an old school Steelers-esque approach of having a very solid roster will net you enough kicks at the can that eventually you win one. I just don't like the odds of that approach based on the teams we'll have to get through. No. I want them to do whatever they have to do every season to have the best possible shot. Instead, Beane is sacrificing this season, just as he did last year, so that he can protect future seasons.

I couldn't possibly care less about what's "fair" when building an NFL roster. Benford is a hell of a football player, and I hope he gets all the money in the world. I'm just disappointed that we're the ones that gave it to him when he isn't the difference maker we need. It's the exact same way I felt about the Groot extension. I would have been fine filling another hole in 2026, because our goal should be trying to win a Super Bowl every year at this stage, even though I don't think that's the way Beane sees it. They could have added even a single high impact player. if you change Joey Bosa's name to Boey Josa, and judged him based on his performance alone, you'd probably find he hasn't been a meaningful contributor in 4 seasons. How has he rebuilt the core? Everyone signed to an extension has been here for months and all of the talent added are complimentary pieces, not core pieces. I've detailed my plan dozens of times.

Paying out big contracts seems to be a fetish around here. We didn't have enough money to build a Super Bowl caliber roster when Benford was making 750k. We're supposed to get better when the same player is now making $19m? If someone sees the vision of how we take a very similar team to what we had last year, and somehow get over the hump this year, I'd genuinely be interested in having it explained. For me, it seems like the plan has to be to draft 2-3 players that play at an all-pro level on rookie deals.

he put on 50 lbs in 2 years? yikes.

Any scenario that requires a Bills opponent to throw up all over themselves in the most critical moment for us to win isn't really based in reality. As a drought survivor that played that game weekly for the better part of 20 years, I've come to grips with that not being the way Super Bowls are won. We've lost the thread quite a bit ont his one though. I stand by my assertion that Groot is not a difference maker at all, and paying him difference maker money to stay puts our team further away from being a contender than had we let him walk away for nothing. Love the player, hate the contract. I'll be more than happy to eat a rack of humble pie if we somehow have a dominant d-line next year spearheaded by Groot and Joey Bosa, but it would be one of the most shocking things I could see happening to the roster. I think they'll be a usual B to B+ that looks great while the leaves are changing and looks lost and overmatched when the snow is on the ground.

Good for him. Perfect fit for them honestly. Adding Diggs will provide Maye with the ability to take the next step (if he has it in him). They probably won't be playoff contenders any time soon, so the pressure on Diggs should be low. Wouldn't be shocked to see him around 1k 6/7 TD though.

or they just grab it and kneel down at the 30 and have 10-12 seconds to go and the exact same thing happens. Our defensive coaching blunders (soft zones and off man coverage) and the players melting down/ not being talented enough two drives in a row (13s and overtime) is a far bigger problem and int he full 3 seasons following that game nothing has been improved. Instead, we're largely running it back with the same guys that couldn't get it done and giving them a far larger percentage of our cap than they previously commanded.

I disagree. You think a squib kick was eating up 13 seconds?

100% This is why I laugh off anybody that makes an argument that we were "just a play away" from winning any of these games against the Chiefs. When you're at the levels that the Bills and the Chiefs are, you've already fully optimized your roster, your gameplan, playcalling, and your gametime decision making as far as you can. From the opening snap, you're already managing the clock and you have an idea of how many scoring opportunities you're going to have and what percentage are likely to succeed. Getting that "one play" to swing your way at that level is like asking for a whole quarter to shift your way, because the margins are razor thin. In the case of the Chiefs, there hasn't been a time that they haven't had us completely outclassed in every phase of the game since Mahomes came into the league. Until that changes, I don't see us beating them in games that matter unless an insane amount of luck drops into our lap, or the Chiefs self-destruct. If they keep building their team like they have been, and keep planning and executing the way they have been, they are effectively unbeatable with McD and Beane at the helm - as good as they otherwise are.

Cover 1 is decent content, but Erik and his friends often come off as homers. I don't consider it to be on the same level as many of the nfl-wide pundits. Brett Kollmann is my favorite guy out there right now.

When you consider we don't have a single star player outside of Allen, that's pretty insane.

He's not a generational talent at either position. He's just a collegiate novelty.

I'm fully aware it's not easy. You can't accomplish what you don't try though. You're right that Crosby and Garrett were off the market, but what about the other half dozen elite players that would have helped this team? We already know the ceiling of every player we signed, except Palmer for which we paid like we did. If you knew you weren't going to go out and get an elite player, you should have taken a swing at rising players for a chance to hit a breakout. Instead we're going to entrust that to a bunch of rookies drafted at the end of eahc round or just hope we can win it all with a good, not great, roster - something that hasn't been done in my lifetime of just under 40 years.

Poor showing in FA. Handed out massive deals to players we already couldn't get the job done with, and gambled with a huge overpay on a WR that to date has been nothing more than a #3/#4 guy - that said, i like the player a lot. A washed up Joey Bosa doesn't move the needle at all for me. I'm a big fan of the Hoecht signing, but he's yet another complimentary piece on a defensive line full of them. We need at least one dominant playmaker there. This team needs 3-4 more all-pro level talents and they added none. We'll have to pray they can get 2 in this draft, and add 1 or 2 more next year, because this roster as constructed isn't getting past this past season's Chiefs or Eagles.

And we're doing the same this year. I'm not sure what point you're making. We need a major influx of talent if the goal is to realistically compete for a Super Bowl. If the goal is to just make the playoffs and lose, then by all means run it back.

We didn't clear any real cap though. We're still at $27.6M dead money this year. They don't hand out trophies for making a conference championship. That's not my goal.

This isn't one of those drafts. If he doesn't make a splash move, then he MUST draft a serious DROY and/or OROY candidate if we have any hope of winning a SB the next two years. Ideally we need both like a Stroud/Anderson type of draft. That's going to be extremely difficult considering we pick at the end of each round.

That's definitely a useful data point. The availability is not a small cocern though, and neither is the ability to do something after you win the pass rush. How much did you watch him last year? Watch this clip of the highlights from the wild card game and pay attention to his speed once he breaks through the line. The guy just doesn't have a gear to make a play back there. Maybe If we had Trey Hendrickson on the other side, his job could be to push pressure into him, but we don't. Rousseau isn't that guy, and neither is Oliver. https://www.houstontexans.com/video/chargers-vs-texans-highlights-wild-card-weekend

I like this signing the best of all the deals. He's been great for us, and it's very good value for a dynamic and versatile player.