transplantbillsfan

that was when he came out of college. It's widely documented lost a bunch of weight with the Rams to switch to LB. https://sports.yahoo.com/article/michael-hoecht-found-weight-plan-035900769.html

Yes... that's the episode

Shaq Thompson is at best the same size as Dorian Williams. I actually think he's smaller.

This is just a thought. In Joe Marino's All-22 this week he pointed out that Hoecht and Williams were being used in a similar manner. I understand that Williams is about 30 lbs lighter than Hoecht's reported weight (couldn't find anything definitive) and about 15 lbs lighter than when Lorenzo Alexander was used in a similar role, but as far as strength and athleticism go, it seems like Dorian Williams could be used similarly as Bernard/Milano/(hopefully)Shaq Thompson man the true LB positions. Tangentially, I'm mainly asking because along with the importance of Hoecht, McDermott's been pretty brilliant defensively since he took over play calling. If anyone listens to The Athletic Football show, the show today was about the 10 people/entities that are changing the NFL this season (very Bills-centric... the very first thing they talk about is Jackson Hawes and they spend a lot of time talking about it) and at one point they Robert Mayes poses the question to his guest Nate Tice asking if we'll look back in 2-3 years at the Bills vs. Chiefs game this week and see that as the game where defenses started changing. (It was all about the dime looks last weekend). So... it sure seems like the "chaos creator" role Hoecht and Alexander years ago can play is pretty darn useful to McDermott. I guess I'm just looking at the players on our roster and wondering if that player for the rest of this season with Hoecht out isn't Dorian Williams? That may be a super weird thought, so I guess I'd direct it to the more knowledgeable among you like @GunnerBill and @Buffalo716 along with anyone else who can chime in.

I'd be fine resting Benford for this game and let Hairston play 100% of the snaps opposite some combination of Tre White/Dane Jackson

Yeah... Stafford's awesome.

I 100% agree and have always thought Burrow was overrated. I'm not saying he's not good or even great, but he's a true "system" QB, whereas I think you could plop Allen, Mahomes, Jackson, and probably Herbert onto any team in any system and they would thrive.

Agreed. Honestly I hope Ryan Nielsen has been working closely with Landon Jackson over the last several weeks and he improves because he's going to need to start playing, probably this week.

As much as we want to complain, at least we aren't the 49ers. There's a 100% injury rate in the NFL... I just want the season enders to impact players to stop happening like they have the last 2 weeks with Hoecht and Oliver.

To be fair, we won't necessarily hear of the trade possibly for another half hour to an hour or so if Beane executed it just before the deadline.

Wouldn't really be surprised if this happened... I'm also guessing we wouldn't really take on any new salary from Von and since we're already paying him anyway and he can seamlessly slide into this D, I don't think it'd be a bad move for at worst a 4th or 5th round pick. Love Deebo when he's healthy, which is never.

It's possible that we could actually free up the Cap space to do it this year considering his Cap hit for 2025 is $6.1m and we've played half the season, so I believe the Bills would only have to take on about $3m in CAP. Where are you seeing his Cap hit is less than $1m?

Soooo... we good???