Straight Hucklebuck

Well putting another ex-Carolina coach on the staff is McDermott pushing Frazier one step closer to the edge. The OP data is pretty convincing.

Well, now that the cap has been set to $224.8M and the Bills are $17M - $20M over the cap, wouldn't they have to announce several restructures and/or cuts? I guess the new league here hasn't started, so maybe they could announce the deal and not have to have all the actual moves completed, but not sure of that.

I like all the old formats better. NBA Playoffs - No play in - Top 8 - First Round was best of 5 NFL - Top 6 - Top 2 seeds get the bye - The 7th team just waters everything down - OT should just be 10:00 on the clock and you play football. I hate this stupid back and forth rules. MLB - Only the 3 Division Winners and 1 Wild Card NHL - I don’t pay attention because the Sabres have stunk, but Top 8, nothing fancy.

Bad drafting

Round 1: WR (The Bills can cut McKenzie and save $2.8M on the cap with only $300K dead cap, the Bills could go outside WR here, or get someone who takes a stranglehold on the slot WR job so we don't have that timeshare with McKenzie, Beasley, Shakir). Round 2: OG Round 3: OG Round 4: OT (RT is a problem, but listening to Beane talk, I don't think the Bills see him as an outright replacement option) Round 5: S Round 6: LB Sorry, we've invested a lot in DI, DE, there isn't another draft pick to spare on another rotational piece that isn't good. Going to have to Coach up Oliver, Rousseau, Epenesa and Basham.

How is Frazier not viewed as a risk? What about WR? The slot position was a mess this season, with McKenzie, Shakir, and Beasley all rotating in, none with any efficiency. Does anyone want Isaiah McKenzie back as the starter next year? RT is a problem. When you watch the Bills, you notice #79 a lot. How long does Morse continue playing? There is no in-house option at LG with Van Roten, Saffold, Boettger all UFAs. The Bills haven't hit on an A player in the draft since Stefon Diggs in 2020. He was essentially the first round draft pick. Outside of that, it's been a lot of defensive line, running backs, OTs and none of those players have been A talents. McDermott talked late in the year about how the team was still getting to know Kaiir Elam, so I can only assume they view Shakir that way. With skepticism on how he practices, how he plays, so he doesn't see the field.

To your point, this coaching staff has always used a veteran in combination with a younger back. Gore took carries from Singletary, Singletary takes carries away from Moss and Cook. So I can see them signing some worn-out slow veteran to put over Cook, and he will eat 8-10 less effective carries.

The consensus is unanimous from what I've seen, the NFL community thinks he will be great. But if you're dedicating at R1 pick to him, where does that leave Cook? Let alone Hines, who couldn't get on the field with Singletary and Cook in front of him, but he's scheduled to make $4.8M this year.

It was either in this video: or this video: McKenzie was only at 3.9 yards after catch.

1st Round WR. That's where you'll get a player with actual high caliber traits. Bills offense is made up of mostly middle rounders.

He runs two routes. A go route and a comeback route off the go-route. Usually against the sideline. He's not a useable every down player. Yeah, he needs 1-3 steps with the ball in front of him. He doesn't make contested catches. I heard a stat that was Gabe YAC was 2.9 this year. He makes the catch and falls down. The Pittsburgh game was the one exception where he did both. Is this risk here that Shakir is an unknown starter, much like Gabe was coming into 2022? What happens if they get that projection wrong? And I'm happy cutting McKenzie and not doing that confusion in the slot again.

I don’t think the Bills have much top end talent past Allen. There isn’t much in the way of elite traits. LT - Dion Dawkins 2nd Round, good LG - Saffold at 34 years old, shouldn’t be back C - Morse solid on the move, but lacks anchor RG - Bates is undrafted, decent player RT - Brown is a 3rd Rounder, he’s been meh to okay? TE - Knox is a 3rd Rounder, Top 15 TE #2 - Quintin Morris is undrafted and not a long term factor WR #1 - Diggs, a top 6 NFL WR in the latter part of his prime, route runner WR #2 - Davis, a go route runner, 4th Rounder, runs a 4.54 40. WR #3 - McKenzie, 5th Rounder, can’t be a full time player WR #4 - Shakir, 5th Rounder, looks good in limited opportunity, but he felt like an afterthought with this coaching staff. WR #5, #6 - Not worth talking about, a collection of UFAs and old guys RB #1 - Devin Singletary, 3rd Rounder, solid, but forever unspectacular, 4.66 40 RB #2 - Cook, 2nd Rounder who looked pretty explosive, but will this coaching staff make him the feature back? Not used in the pass game. RB #3 - Hines, Beane brought him up twice in the season ending press conference, and I can see where McDermott and him will go back and forth about his usage. The guy touched the ball 13 total times on offense since the November 6th trade. There isn’t any first round investment around Josh Allen. No take the top off kind of players, not one good/great offensive lineman since Dawkins. Beane got Diggs in 2020 and stopped investing in elite offense pieces, instead focusing all assets on defense. He took his foot off the gas because he thought we were all set and it’s plateaued the team.

I think we’re all saying the same thing. Dorsey needs to call a more cohesive offense. Greg Cosell said when he watches the Bills on offense, they run the ball as if it’s something they know they’re “supposed” to do, but with little marriage to the pass game. Dorsey has those checkdowns and layups in the offense (contrary to what WGR has said all year), but both him and Josh push the deeper targets. I’ve said all year this team plays with no tempo offensively. The Bills drain every last second off the play clock constantly before the snap. I do think the Bills are running into a talent ceiling. Maybe with more efficiency they could squeeze 1-2 more ppg out of this offense, but you need to stack talent, and they have mostly picked through Goodwill to upgrade, especially after Diggs. Beane took his foot off the gas. I also think one more thing. When I see pictures of Allen, I think he can get into better shape. He has no muscular definition at all. I thought this about Fitzpatrick for years, could he have been a bit better if he really cut down the body fat and lifted more? Obviously Allen is tighter than Fitzpatrick, but I think using this off-season to get in the best shape of his NFL career is achievable and will make him faster and protect his elbow. He can tone, because otherwise, you’re at peak Allen now; 4,200-4,400 yards, 35 TDs, 700 yards rushing. Of course that’s not an easy level to achieve, but competition in the AFC means you live your life in the margins.

He makes great points on timing the snap, and the angle of routes, losing leverage. And in this game and a few others, Minnesota, Allen could have checked down faster and Dorsey could have really shortened the average depth per target by not running anything past 15 yards, running the ball or having Hines in the game instead of 4.66 Singletary. Maybe Allen isn’t good enough to understand what defenses are doing and play clock ball against zone coverage, and this does show that Dorsey doesn’t have a complete feel for what’s going on out there. I think the Bills can do a better job of looking at the QB they have, and instead of asking him to be Chad Pennington, we could actually do something at WR past signing 200 year old Emmanuel Sanders, and declining 29-year old Jamison Crowder, and leaning on Cole Beasley for 8.9 yards/catch like 2021, and asking John Brown to come back. Also Diggs is 29/30 and when does his decline start? He’s 1400 yards automatically every season from here on out? Because he doesn’t show up in some of these big games going back to 2020. I’m shocked that 5’8” Isaiah McKenzie isn’t reliable, oh wait he’s been like that for 3 years now. Allen can improve the pre-snap recognition and decision making, Warner is right on that. But I think a big part of this is Brandon Beane traded for Diggs and after that he stopped trying to acquire A players on offense after that. The line is weak, he’s scabbed at low end veterans for years. We have zero A+ WR athlete mismatches. Our QB likes to the throw deep. Diggs is strained to have enough deep speed, Gabe has the the ability to turn on a dime the same as a runaway train, and you have Smurf’s after that. The Bills are outgunned. When a checkdown QB played a stiff defense last week, they struggled to 20 points, needing a Pat Mahomes fluke fumble. Imagine Allen with Hill and Waddle. There would be any of this check down more talk. The Bills got Diggs and haven’t added anyone significant since. That’s a big part of this. Their last organic good offensive lineman is Dion Dawkins.

Check down, check down, check down, check down, check down. Then get someone faster than Devon Singletary, Gabe Davis, and Dawson Knox if that’s all you want to do. Also, the line is pathetic. A team brings half a pressure more and this offensive line falls apart.

He came out the gate with an MVP and 50 TDs. He’s going to win a 2nd MVP. He’s never played a road Playoff game, and is 10-3 now. His 3rd Super Bowl appearance by 27. His average season is 4800 yards and 38 TDs, 10 Ints at 66%.

Agree, so far, 7 games, 9 TDs. His team averages 22 ppg. He got zero flack for his 2-Ints in the AFCCG.

Allen is more Favre to me. In some respects they're not totally wrong. Mahomes has proven to be the Michael Jordan of this era. He is a mega-star. Burrow is the processor, the high football IQ, throw to the open man.

That would be ideal. Mike Evans or DeAndre Hopkins (with the money that was supposed to go to Tremaine Edmunds) and double down with a draft pick Smith-Ngijba, Flowers, Downs.

My problem with a veteran is McDermott won't be able to help himself. Drake would be the starter and Cook would be back to 5-8 carries per game. We saw it with Gore/Singletary, saw it again this year with Singletary/Cook. McDermott will not move off veterans for younger players.

That's where I come down as well. Slot was a mess last year, with McKenzie not consistent, Shakir playing snaps but never seeing the ball, Beasley having to be called back in at 33 years old. Verses the need to push Gabe on the outside.

Josh is much more Favre, the athletic extension plays, improvisation, arm strength, aggressive throws. Brady is presnap, precision, dissect, repeatable over and over, stable processing.

We all know Morse, he struggles to anchor against power NTs. It just needs a talent investment, coming at the expense of Defensive Lineman in the first. Halfway through the year you started hearing national commentators saying this offense lacks talent.

McDermott showed us a lot with 13 seconds. Thinking you could play that far off of Kansas City, rushing 4 with no chance to get there. We saw it again with 12-seconds in the regular season. The Monday Night game against the Bengals - way too far off. It works against bad QBs who are invited to throw passes, we bank on mistakes. But good QBs just slice this defense apart.

Yeah I mean when I watch Bills games, the RT and the pressure immediately stands out. They’ve band-aided at Guard for several years now with veterans. Beane has shut off the talent spicket at WR after Diggs.