Straight Hucklebuck

Just go listen to Joe Marino drone on about drafting DTs and LBs and how the Bills offensive weapons are just fine.

I don’t buy it. This team doesn’t have the firepower to get the job done in the Playoffs. Our roster peaked in 2020, Allen and Diggs vaulted the Bills up the ranks. But after that moment Beane took his eyes off elite offensive talent and started to pour resources into the defense, and as such, the teams performance has plateaued. I don’t want to hear about linebackers, DTs, DE’s, backup TEs to run heavy sets. The Bills need another starting OT to replace Spencer Brown, and they need an elite traits WR because everyone on their roster is 5th, 4th, undrafted, undrafted and 5th round players. Diggs has made himself into a star player, he’s outplayed his draft position. But the Bills are deficient talent wise around Allen. The Bills didn’t go all in to get Brown or Adams (I don’t believe the Chiefs would have traded Hill to the Bills), but we are lacking that caliber of player in the offense. Hopkins would represent that, I just don’t buy offering the Cardinals Ed Oliver and a 5th and having them eat 80% of the salary is realistic at all.

I know a couple of things. 1. I’m sick of Sal Capaccio running around on every show he goes on saying the Bills really want to run 2-Tight Ends because they’ve brought in OJ Howard, Jacob Hollister, Tyler Kroft and Bobby Hart. The entire league knows those guys are bums, and washouts. Nobody in the league would depend on those players to be the #2Tight End requiring an offensive philosophy shift. Bills/J. Allen doesn’t throw to Tight Ends and you need a viable body as a backup to Knox, that’s it. 2. Mike Schopp and the betting odds for the 2023 Super Bowl and equating the Bills with the Chiefs. The Bills aren’t the Chiefs. The QB isn’t as good, the Coaching Staff isn’t as good. Accept that fact, and once you do you’ll understand that simply copying the Chiefs won’t work. There is a talent gap. The Bills will need to take and make more risks.

Sound logic, thanks for posting. This is an ugly final list though.

The Bills got 5 years from Edmunds. Were they supposed to trade him last year? Leaving Bernard to start from Day 1. Also, Ed Oliver is a JAG. Nobody is giving anything more than a 4th for him. That doesn't alter the trajectory of your franchise.

Yes this is the growing consensus on Johnston, an athlete that doesn't have the hands, polish or production to feel good about. However, wouldn't it be on the Bills coaches to hone what Johnston can do and work him into the offense? He's 6'3" 210 pounds and has some snap on routes underneath.

The AFC is a buzz-saw right now. Trying to get through Mahomes, Burrow, Herbert, Lawrence, Lamar, Rodgers, and to a lesser extent DeShaun Watson, with Indianapolis grabbing a young QB as well. It would be the Bills luck to get good in the most daunting era of AFC QB play since the early 1990's.

"Small amount of pleasure" Yeah, I'm enjoying this. All those lists of the most "diehard" fans in pro-sports, now watching them walk-out in the middle of games. Enjoy it Boston. Your team doesn't have a QB, no innovation on the offensive, they haven't had a playmaker up there in 5-years. And besides, the Celtics are title contenders again, and the Bruins are coming off a historic regular season. I think they'll be fine.

I've hated the Bills uniforms since the 2002 switch. The 1990's red helmets, white face masks, red end-zones. That's the Bills. Ever since 2002 its been ugly, gray has worked its way in and out of the jersey, drab dark blue, Bills logo on the back of the jersey, down the pant leg, "Bills" on the front. It's bloated. The red helmets popped.

Look historically at the Bills second round picks. Pick #59 in a draft our own GM has said is weak, for a top shelf WR, albeit on the back 9?

Strange obsession? Matt did you watch the Bills play offense from 2006-2018? Commonly, no QB, trying to run the ball and play ball control, scoring 20 points per game. ”popgun” offense and zero offensive star players. So you watch the Super Bowl and conclude defense still wins Championships? Well if that’s the case, the Bills agree with you because they’ve done everything they can to bring back everyone on that unit and they get Von Miller back. We’ll see.

These guys copy and paste the same show every day. Somehow the Cardinals moving up 7-slots, eating 2/3rds of Hopkins money is a realistic idea because Jimmy Johnson made a chart in 1989, followed, of course, by more betting lines and prop bets. Those two are all over the map throwing up ridiculous scenarios.

When I watched him, he had no instincts. Commentators in Cleveland would talk about how he ran up the backs of his blockers, and you only saw the talent after contact was made and he was twisting and pulling for extra yards.

I'm glad there is more access now then there was back then. Every year in the Ralph years it was a story about how a successful draft pick was someone that the Bills loved, but passed over for a bust. Whaley tried this with Mahomes, when he was making the rounds on podcasts saying him and his staff loved him, but Pegula or McDermott didn't want a QB. I never believed many of these stories, Donahoe, Modrak, Levy, Brandon, Nix, Whaley always were going to pick stars, but ended up with Whitner over Ngata.

I just don't see a path on how the Bills afford him? Spotrac shows $6M in cap space, and -$17M in cap space in 2024. Unless, we start cutting or trading some of the bigger contracts on the team? Morse? Tre' White?

But now it's back to Beane because McDermott trusts him more? Beane just talked about how this works yesterday.

I gave Beane plenty of credit in my original post. So no, I don't think Beane is better than ordinary in terms of drafting prowess.

Yes, I understand that Hyde and Poyer weren't draft picks. I included them because they commonly get credited to Beane working behind the scenes. I don't believe McDermott telling was Whaley who to select. Sure he passes along what his staff wants in a player for the given system, but I don't buy that a Defensive Coordinator and first year Head Coach who had been in the building for 4-months was also hand selecting players that he personally scouted, that Whaley and his scouts were puppets. Because if we're saying that the 2017 Draft showed that McDermott knew to pick Tre, Dawkins, Milano, then why hasn't there been more draft hits after 2018 1st Round? That's 6-years ago now.

The Bills luck is unfortunate. Because they have their best QB ever, at the same time an even better one is in Kansas City, and 5-6 other AFC Teams have their best QB in Franchise History.

Allen of course also gave the obligatory "there is nothing to do outside in Buffalo, or recreationally" blast. Have to make sure to get that in there from time to time.

For sure, Beane has had to lean on free agency heavily to supplement the roster and it worked - getting Brown and Beasley really kick-started the Bills passing revival and understanding that more talent at WR makes a difference. However, Ed Oliver over Jeff Simmons and Dexter Lawrence sticks out here. Cody Ford over DK Metcalf. The complete whiff on Zack Moss. Terrell Bernard seems to be heading down that path. Outside of Allen, the best draft pick Beane has made is Edmunds. The team is outstanding compared to what it had become in the later-Ralph years. And Beane secured Diggs, never giving up on the idea. But I agree that his drafting is ordinary and now you're competing in the finest margins.

No because Beane wasn't in Buffalo for the 2017 NFL Draft. Whaley and his Scouting Staff was here for 2017. He gets White, Dawkins, Hyde and Poyer. Beane was not here yet, and there was an interview when Whaley left in which McDermott said that it was Whaley's staff that ran Free Agency and the Draft that year. Beane does not get credit for those players.

Why would they take Simpson at #27 when Campbell is available well into the 2nd?

The Bills gave him a Top 5 NFL WR in his prime. Beane just needs to get another elite traits WR to add to that group. That’s the mission.

The Bills strategy is keep the team that has won 13, 11 and 13 games in the 2020-2022 regular season as intact as possible. So that means Milano extended, Poyer brought back, Dane Jackson tendered, Lawson & Phillips back, Boettger and Quesenberry back, Dodson, Tyler M, Klein all back at LB. Because of high dollar contract core of Allen, Miller, Diggs, Milano, White, Knox, Morse, Dawkins, and to a lesser extent Poyer & Hyde, it is harder to add blue chip difference makers to the offense. 2023 Free Agency was a similar approach on the Offensive Line - bargain rate starters. At WR, it was more of the same under the radar signings, albeit with a pivot to younger players than in years past. The Bills could have made a play for Orlando Brown Jr and put him at LT, and Dawkins at RT - but that obviously would have meant Poyer and several other familiar faces not coming back. Same with Hopkins. If the Bills FO wanted him Day One, they could have made that happen.