Straight Hucklebuck

It will be interesting to see how the Bills divvy up 6 draft picks. Do they trade back in Round 1? Mike Ginnitti of Spotrac said he anticipates the Bills ending up with $20M-$25M in cap space after restructures, and he is anticipating Tremaine Edmunds ($16M) and Jordan Poyer ($11M) both walking because of cost. So, they might be more active in FA than originally anticipated, and at minimum, Crowder and Kumerow are free agents, so you'd think they would try and get one WR FA.

Another bunch of interviews where McDermott and Beane act like none of us us have a TV. I swear, especially McDermott, just always trying to give the most canned answers he can to everything just gives these non-sensical answers. - Gabe got off to a slower start (Rams, Pittsburgh, Chiefs were among Gabe's best games) but then later said Year 3 is the biggest jump. - Talked about how much faith they have in Shakir (10 catches in 2022) - Talked about how RAC is really important to them (Bills dead last in 2022) - Talked about how people had "unrealistic" expectations for Gabe. (Yes its the fans and media's fault for pointing out that Gabe has a limited skill set and that the last serious offensive investment you've made around Josh was Diggs 3 years ago now).

There is no way Gabe is ripped given that Instagram picture of him with Bert K. Gabe in that photo has no muscle tone and a belly. It’s hard for me to reconcile Beane’s comments about Gabe working so hard and that physique. I know Gabe has that reputation as a hard worker, we saw when he got drafted he was running routes 20 minutes after he got picked. I just don’t understand how a #2 NFL WR with 90+ targets can function at peak with that body.

Beane again praised Gabe’s work ethic, but can he can into better shape?

The ankle excuse for Gabe is getting old. He rolled it before Week 2.

Beane talked quite a bit about Tight End.

Whatever Aaron, your opinion lost value when you talk about how the skill positions are good enough around Josh as is.

That guy they just hired from Carolina. He's the next McDermott stooge.

See ya later Leslie. Bye.

Makes sense, Florida is a retirement home anyways.

They have to get their hands on one of the following WRs in the first round: Jaxon Smith-Ngijba Zay Flowers Jalin Hyatt Jordan Addison Because it’s a drop off to: Josh Downs Tank Dell Rashee Rice Parker Washington Hoping that one of them with fall to #59.

Unfortunately, the Bills have had to supplement a lot in Free Agency because their drafting after 2017 and 2018 has been weak. The 2nd Round has been a disaster for this team with Zay Jones, Cody Ford (when I was screaming at the TV for DK Metcalf), AJ Epenesa off a terrible Combine, Boogie Basham, now James Cook who they just won’t really turn loose. The team really believes in Special Teams so there have been 2-4 specialists retained year after year - Tyler M, T Jones, T Dodson, J Kumerow. You look at their drafts again, 1 good offensive lineman since 2017, Dawkins. Everyone else they’ve drafted is borderline NFL. A lot of okay everywhere - Rousseau has been okay, Oliver has been okay, Singletary is okay, Morse is ok, Bates is okay, Tim Settle is okay, Jordan Phillips when healthy is okay. So to summarize this, the last A player the Bills have added on offense was Diggs in 2020. Beane hasn’t made a serious attempt at #2 Tight End after Knox, so that’s usually a street free agent or borderline NFL practice squad level player (Sweeney). They’ve undervalued getting better and deeper at the skill positions. They poured a lot of resources into keep the Back 7 of this defense as static as possible, while dumping resources into DLine so that McDermott and Frazier can have their rotation. But the big point is they have not drafted well. They got one WR who is alright to pair with Diggs and stopped. Means they had to go to FA for ~30 year olds in Brown, Beasley, Sanders (worst), Crowder. Because of swings and misses on the offensive line, they’ve scabbed in FA on the OLine. It’s a bunch of C-/D+ level guys. When your QB is not as good as Mahomes, you have to compensate for that talent gap, and it comes in the draft. They’ve left Josh out to dry when it comes to offensive investment. It looks like a defensive minded head coach who is overly obsessed with Special Teams and preserving his full-time prevent scheme, over doing everything you can to build around a once in a lifetime franchise talent at QB. Have to improve the drafting.

And according to WGR young guns, it’s why they make the case that you can “get away” with an average offensive line. Allen gets them out of trouble. But they’re also the people that constantly shove DVOA down everyone’s throats and scream about efficient passing offense.

Man, awesome posts here DBJ and Mango. This team has subpar skill talent. The 2nd Round has stalled this teams trajectory. Cody Ford was picked over AJ Brown and DK Metcalf. That is a disaster of a pick. And Debo Samuel was picked a few picks before Ford. So to come out of that draft with Oliver and Ford, when it easily could have been Simmons and AJ Brown, wow.

McDermott will tell you how it feels. He's seen it all, done it all, he's been there before, it's all part of the process. Just sit down and don't ask questions.

60% of the draft allocation is defense. McDermott has gotten his way since 2017. We can bring up he tried Peterman - not once, but twice. My initial read on him when he was hired was he sounded like Jauron, a typical defensive coach who talked about snowy weather and the physical run game. 13 seconds started his clock ticking, we all saw the passive prevent defense him and Frazier played against Cincinnati, showing they learned nothing from 13 seconds. Meanwhile the Bengals coaching staff had a great plan for Allen. He’s definitely under the microscope now, with Diggs starting to get more vocal now on every interview about what are we doing and the growing angst of Allen being asked about his elbow non-stop. I think Kansas City was always the backstop. They are the bar of excellence. But to see you’ve also been passed by the Bengals now, has been a harder pill to swallow. Is he the Marty Schottenheimer of our era? And can Beane actually Draft well enough to stock the shelves?

Exactly. In one breath him and Greg Tompsett are gloating about all this cap space the Bills can generate, and they play the stupid you’re making a hole game. Mike Ginnitti from Spotrac came on and said there are linebackers available that can do 85% of what Edmunds can do in 1/2 the cost. Sam Monson said the same. Why do you have these guests on if you don’t want to listen to them? Anyways, Bruce Nolan is out there now saying it’s 60/40 defense now in the draft assets and Josh was 17.9% of that alone. Ed Oliver is okay, he’s a guy. No way he’s getting a second deal. If someone was willing to give you a 3rd for him, take the $10M in savings and the pick and run.

Amen man. McDermott has two strikes, really 2.5. He blew that game in Houston, that’s 0.5 a point. He gained that back by getting the Bills to the AFCCG in 2020. I’m not going to fault them for not being able to beat Chiefs in Arrowhead in their first good year. 13 seconds is a horrific loss that goes right with Wide Right, Music City. And his team came out flat as a board against Cincinnati and the defensive scheme was another pathetic prevent shell all day mixed with obvious poorly designed blitzes. Use what you’ve got and get some results. He’s no good to this team if he needs the 2000 Ravens or 1985 Bears defense to win.

It’s time. Beane needs to tell McDermott the water spigot on defense is turned off. Its time for some offensive investment. Sorry you don’t get Edmunds, Poyer and another FA Safety. Sorry Sean and Leslie and new Senior Defensive Assistant, time to Coach up: $100M Von 1st Round Rousseau 1st Round Oliver 2nd Round Basham 2nd Epenesa FA DaQuan Jones FA Tim Settle Extended Milano Extended 1st Round White 1st Round Elam Extended Taron Johnson Extended Micah Hyde Get out there and find talent on Offense.

11.5% Draft Capital on the skill positions around Allen, and 8% of that is running back. 3.5% on WR and TE combined. And you have Joe Marino and Cover 1 talking about investing more into the defensive line. Aaron on Cover 1 thinks the weapons are just fine.

Because he has no length, and no experience going against NFL corners. How about cut McKenzie, don’t bother with Beasley, Brown, Crowder or Kumerow and sign two FAs and draft a R1 talent? That’s learning from what the Chiefs did. They went 5-deep at WR and were in a good position to weather injury and have interchangeable pieces.

The new CBS Mock Draft is out, and it's the most realistic and ultimately disappointing for Bills. Hyatt gets picked before the Bills, leaving only Zay Flowers as the top flight WRs on the board. Bills end up with Broderick Jones and Parker Washington. I keep hearing how horrible this WR class is, but I don't see it. Several guys who are going to test well at the Combine and have numbers. Not the biggest physical group, but playmakers all over that are going to last past 35-40 picks.

Mogilny was the first name that came to mind for me.

The Bills? They have no numbers. They need Diggs, Davis, and unfortunately, McKenzie to stay healthy, because there is no one on the bench. Toney is a 1st Rounder, Skyy Moore is a 2nd Rounder, JuJu is a former 2nd Round pick, Hardman is a 2nd Round pick, MVS is a 5th Rounder. The Bills depth chart is McKenzie a 5th Rounder, Shakir a 5th Rounder, then off a cliff to Beasley, John Brown, Jamison Crowder. TALENT TALENT TALENT TALENT GAP. Beane hopefully learned his lesson, signing old guys at the end of their careers at WR doesn't work. I would have thought the Emmanuel Sanders experience would have shown the Bills this. But next offseason, it was Jamison Crowder again.

But see what KC did? They loaded on B- / B WRs. They went 5-deep after Kelce. When Hardman went down, JuJu and MVS stepped right in, when Toney pulled his hamstring, Skyy Moore was right there.