SoTier

Actually, I rather enjoy being a fan of the chasee rather than one of the chasers. I like winning the regular season rather than winning free agency or the off season. Our AFCE rivals sign all these big names (or names of players we've merely heard of) and pick all these highly touted prospects in the draft, and then comes the regular season, and our Bills crush their hopes ... and their spirits ... and send their fans home dreaming of winning the next off-season.

I am not a fan of fried baloney ... or ketchup on any meat except hamburgers or cheeseburgers "with everything". The combination is worthy of a vomit emoji. I do, however, like uncooked bologna with yellow mustard. I'm a fan of thin sliced and stacked bologna for sandwiches. Love it. I sometimes add dill pickle relish or kosher dill slices. Yum!

I don't have a doomsday scenario. Like @eball and some other posters have posted, the Bills are too competent to totally miss on an entire draft. I trust them to get some good players, so my "doomsday" is really more of a "disappointment": I would not be happy if the Bills did not draft at least one OLer if they keep all 10 of their picks. If they used some of their Day 3 picks to move up in the 2nd round or add a third rounder, then not taking an OLer would be okay with me, but protecting the QB is too important not to always be looking to the future when having lots of picks.

What's impressive is that McDaniel got into Yale without being a legacy applicant (ie, an applicant who has one or more family members who graduated from the school) or a gifted athlete. For the 2146 openings in the Class of 2028, Yale had 57,228 applicants. Being the child/grandchild of an alumnus or an outstanding HS athlete moves any applicant up to top of the applicant list. Miami is loaded with talent on the offensive skill positions but their offense is significantly compromised by having mediocre OL play. They have so much invested in their QB and WRs that they can't afford to keep the best of their OLers. That imbalance is likely to bite them in the butt this season since they've lost more talent in free agency or to retirement on both sides of the ball, and come into the draft without filling many of their holes much less improving the talent.

I don't miss those days at all. I want the Bills to draft #32 every year.

78 years ago today, April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in MLB.

FYI ... there are other positions that are important besides offensive skill positions. Here are just 3 who could have helped the Bills. All started 16 games for their teams as rookies. EJ Manuel only started 17 games for the Bills in 4 years. Justin Pugh was taken at #19; he started at guard as a rookie for the Giants, and was a starter at both guard positions all 11 of his seasons with the Giants and Cardinals. Kyle Long was drafted at #20; he started all 16 games at right tackle for the Bears as a rookie and made the Pro Bowl three straight seasons. He was a 2nd team All Pro in 2014. His career was shortened by a series of injuries after the 2015 season, but he still played 7 seasons in the NFL, all as a starter. Desmond Trufant was drafted at #22; he started all 16 games as a rookie, made the Pro Bowl once, and was a starting DB for 8 seasons with Atlanta and Detroit.

Philly also just gave Saquan an extension and a pay raise. Baltimore is seeking to extend Henry for 2025 and beyond, too.

These are the first round QBs plus later round QBs of some significance drafted between 2000 and 2014, and so would have time to develop into pros by 2017 or 2018. 2000 - #18 - Chad Pennington #199 - Tom Brady 2001 - #1 - Michael Vick #32 - Drew Brees 2002 - #1 - David Carr #3 - Joey Harrington #32 - Patrick Ramsey #81 - Josh McKown #108 - David Garrard 2003 - #1 - Carson Palmer #7 Byron Leftwich #19 - Kyle Boller #22 - Rex Grossman 2004 - #1 - Eli Manning #4 - Phillip Rivers #11 - Ben Roethlisberger #22 - JP Losman #90 - Matt Schaub 2005 - #1 - Alex Smith #24 - Aaron Rodgers #25- Jason Campbell #106 - Kyle Orton #213 - Derek Anderson #230 - Matt Cassel #250 - Ryan Fitzpatrick 2006 - #3 - Vince Young #10 - Matt Leinart #11 - Jay Cutler 2007 - #1 - Ja'Marcus Russell #22 - Brady Quinn 2008 - #3 - Matt Ryan #18 Joe Flacco 2009 - #1 - Matthew Stafford #5 - Mark Sanchez #17 - Josh Freeman 2010 - #1 - Sam Bradford #25 - Tim Tebow 2011 - #1 - Cam Newton #8 - Jake Locker #10 - Blaine Gabbert #12 - Christian Ponder #35- Andy Dalton #36- Colin Kaepernick #180 - Tyrod Taylor 2012 - #1 - Andrew Luck #2 - Robert Griffin III #8 Ryan Tannehill #22 - Brandon Weeden #57 - Brock Osweiller #75 - Russell Wilson #88 - Nick Foles #102 -Kirk Cousins 2013 - #16 - EJ Manuel #39 - Geno Smith 2014 - #3 - Blake Bortles #22 - Johnny Manziel #32 - Teddy Bridgewater #36 - Derek Carr #62 - Jimmy Garoppolo The third best first round QBs were Patrick Ramsey, Kyle Boller, Ben Roethlisberger, Jason Campbell, Jay Cutler, Josh Freeman, Blaine Gabbert, Ryan Tannehill and Teddy Bridgewater. Only Ben Roethlisberger was worth trading up to get (and I think Pittsburgh did). FTR, the 3rd first round QBs between 2015 and 2023 were: Paxton Lynch (#26 in 2016), Deshaun Watson (#12 in 2017), Josh Allen (#7 in 2018), Dwayne Haskins (#15 in 2019), Justin Herbert (#6 in 2020), Trey Lance (#3 in 2021), and Anthony Richardson (#4 in 2022). Only Allen and Herbert were worth trading up to get. I'll stand by what I said back in 2018. Trading up to take the third best QB in a draft is a very iffy proposition. That's as true in 2025 as it was in 2018. I have always owned that I thought that drafting Allen was a mistake in 2018. I didn't think that the Bills "drafted the wrong Josh" because I thought that both would be busts. I was wrong, and I've always acknowledged that. Nothing that's transpired since has changed the truth of that statement. The Bills cut Fitzpatrick prior to the 2013 draft because they planned on drafting a QB in the 2013 draft, regardless of the quality of the QBs in that class. Manuel was unimpressive as a rookie, and he didn't improve as a sophomore. The Bills replaced him with Kyle Orton who was simply playing for a paycheck ... and it cost the Bills the win that would have put them in the playoffs. What's wrong with that? I'll stand by that all day, every day. If a team needs players at several positions, they should take the one they like best for one of those positions. If New Orleans loves Sanders, they should take him at #9, but they shouldn't take him just because they need a QB. With their roster, they'll have other opportunities to pick a QB early in Round 1 in the next couple of years.

Bull manure. The reason the Bills drought lasted so long was because the owner and his surrogate, Russ Brandon, operated the team to maximize profits. The aim was to spend the minimum amount necessary to field a team that won just enough to convince fans to fill the seats. The last Bills GM before Beane was hired to put winning over maximizing profits was Tom Donahoe. He traded a first round pick to get Drew Bledsoe and he traded up in the 2004 to draft JP Losman. Both of those QBs were compromised by the team's lack of support in terms of providing either with decent coaching, OL, and WRs. Under Brandon the Bills played "money ball". They drafted players and they signed FAs with the sole purpose of conning fans into believing the team was attempting to build a winning team. It's why they hired obscure That's why they replaced RB McGahey with Marshawn Lynch and then replaced Lynch with CJ Spiller. It's why they signed Terrell Owens and later Mario Williams. It's also why they drafted Manuel in 2013 and let Stephon Gilmore leave in free agency so they needed to draft Tre'Davious White in 2017 to replace him. Between 2006 and 2013, the Bills were literally a farm team for the rest of the NFL as so many of the good/great players they developed went on to star on other teams because the team "couldn't afford them" while the Bills rosters were filled with waiver wire refugees, UDFAs, and Day 3 draft picks. Luckily for Bills fans, Pegula got lucky that his choice for HC, Rex Ryan, crashed and burned. Both McDermott and Brandon Beane were "outsiders" to the Bills organization. We got even luckier when Russ Brandon was fired in 2018 for issues unrelated to how he ran the football team, and Pegula essentially turned the team over to Brandon Beane to run.

The Bills FO during the drought never put off drafting a QB or any player because the current team "wasn't ready", ie had enough talent; they didn't draft good/great players in critical positions when they had the opportunity to do so because they were using premium draft picks to replace good starters that they either traded away or allowed to walk in free agency. Drafting a QB simply because he's the best of QB in a draft without really outstanding QB prospects is definitely a "drought era Bills loser concept". The Bills did exactly that in 2013 when they drafted EJ Manuel.

In my city, it would improve the gene pool. Despite the city having sidewalks and using sidewalk plows to clear those sidewalks during the winter, too many kids (and their dumbass parents) regularly walk in the streets. // sarcasm off Seriously, in my area, the rural and suburban kids all get picked up by buses. In the city, most kids actually do use the sidewalks. More importantly, this is whitetail deer country. Rural, suburban, urban -- nobody with half a brain drives carelessly before/around sunrise or sunset because smacking a deer is a very real possibility.

This is similar to what the Drought Era Bills used to do. The only difference is that the Bills FO back then wasn't nearly as interested in winning football games as they were in maximizing profits, so they either let their best players walk in FA or they traded them away for next to nothing. In both the Drought Era and the current desire of some fans to trade away players for draft picks, the result is having to use premium draft picks to fill self-created holes instead of spending premium draft picks on players who could improve the team. Cook is only doing what players do, trying to get paid as much as he can. That he uses social media to make his wishes known is also just what people his age do. I would really prefer that the Bills re-sign Cook, too. He is truly an explosive threat in the running game, and it's unlikely that the Bills can replace him as easily as some think. Fans need to have some patience. There's absolutely no reason to trade Cook at this time since there's no immediate deadline looming to get a new deal done. They could make a deal next month or before the season starts or even before FA begins next March.

Thanks. I thought the #12 was too high because the Bills made the playoffs in 2017, but I couldn't find any references to a previous trade. I guess I didn't ask the right questions ... like what did the Bills get for Cordy Glenn, whom I knew that they did trade.

The Bills first rounder in 2018 was #12, which gave them about twice the trade value points than they have at #30. They gave up #12 plus #53 and #56 to move up to #7. That's 5 spots. The Bills would be moving up about 25 spots. Not realistic. Hunter is likely to go in the top five, which is about 200 or more trade value points higher than #7. The Bills would have to give up their 2025 first and both seconds plus their 2026 first plus possibly other picks or players. I don't think that Hunter is worth nearly that much. I'm not sure that even Abdul Carter is worth that much draft capital.

The Bills "over investing" at RB wasn't about "losing a valuable pick at a position losing value". In the early 2000s, RBs were still valued. It was about the team philosophy that emphasized maximizing profits over winning. Consequently, the Bills rarely re-signed the best players they drafted and used high draft picks to fill the holes created by losing those players. They did similar things with DBs as they did with RBs, letting first rounders Antoine Winfield, Sr, Nate Clements, and Donte Whitner along with 2nd round DB Jairus Byrd, all excellent DBs with multiple Pro Bowl and/or All Pro awards, leave while keeping first rounder Leodis McKelvin who was not nearly as good as the DBs they allowed to leave. The Bills weren't missing on high draft picks at RB and DB and needed to try again and again. They spent a lot of draft capital replacing good players that they didn't want to spend the money to keep.

Exactly -- and this was back in the days when teams frequently re-signed their best RBs because they valued them more than they do today. The only sorta "dud" in the trio was Spiller. McGahey was a pro-bowler, maybe an All Pro, for Baltimore before going on to Denver and rushing for nearly 1200 yards and another Pro Bowl season. Lynch was an All Pro and multiple Pro Bowler for the Seahawks and led them to a SB. He might become a HOFer, too.

Finding good RBs was never the Bills issue during the Drought Era. Keeping the good ones was always the problem because the Bills, especially under Russ Brandon, never paid their best "home grown talent". They drafted McGahee at #23 in 2003, and traded him for a 3rd and a 7th in 2007. They used their #12 pick in 2007 on Marshawn Lynch to replace him. Lynch ran for consecutive 1000+ until he fell out of favor with Jauron. The Bills traded Lynch to Seattle for a 2011 4th round pick in October 2010. They used their #9 pick in 2010 on CJ Spiller whom they allowed to leave in free agency in 2015. Oh, it would undoubtedly be a great deal for whatever team that got him, just like trading for McGahee and Lynch worked out great for the Ravens and Seahawks. It wouldn't be a good deal for the Bills. The best deal for the Bills would be for the two sides to reach a compromise that keeps Cook on the team for several more seasons. Keeping Cook for the 2025 season and allowing him to leave in FA in 2026 and getting a comp pick is the second best deal imo.

In mid-May, Niagara-on-the-Lake will just be starting up for the season. It will probably not be as decked out with flowers as it is later in the season. The same with Niagara Falls, Ontario. For example, the Maid of the Mist boat tours (by whatever name they operate under) may operate on a limited schedule, and be very weather dependent. If you take a tour (I highly recommend it!), dress warm since the water will be cold! You won't have to wait for tables in restaurants in either NF or NOTL in mid May, especially during the week. Ft George Historical Site is the equivalent to Ft Niagara. It may be open limited days/hours in May. There are a number of wineries right around NOTL, too.

If "the NFL" -- professionals and fans alike -- don't already know that all these media draft analysts are creating/feeding off hype, they haven't been paying much attention to the draft for a long time, especially when it comes to QBs. The bolded QBs are the bonafide great franchise QBs in recent drafts. The underlined QBs are 2nd tier franchise QBs. The only #1 overall pick who has become a great franchise QB in this group is Joe Burrow. 2016 - #1 Jared Goff, #2 Carson Wentz 2017 - #2 Mitch Trubisky, #10 Patrick Mahomes, #12 Deshaun Watson 2018 - #1 Baker Mayfield, #3 Sam Darnold, #7 Josh Allen, #10 Josh Rosen, #32 Lamar Jackson 2019 - #1 Kyler Murray, #6 Daniel Jones 2020 - #1 Joe Burrow, #5 Tua Tagovailoa, #6 Justin Herbert, #26 Jordan Love, #53 Jalen Hurts 2021 - #1 Trevor Lawrence, #2 Zach Wilson, #3 Trey Lance, #11 Justin Fields, #15 Mac Jones 2022 - #20 Kenny Pickett, #262 Brock Purdy That is the best description of Josh Allen I have ever heard or read!!! Thank you!

Has any other team offered a disgruntled RB a big pay day since then? The few RBs who have gotten big second or third contracts have been the guys who have been "team players" like Barkley.

I looked at the photos, and I wasn't impressed. I would call the house "uninspiring" rather than "stunning". I have no doubt that it's filled with the usual expensive finishes that are popular with buyers with lots of bucks to spend on a house, but it's just an ordinary suburban tract house that could have been built in the last 30 years in Anywhere, USA. Put it in a less upscale subdivision and it's a $500k house. Put it in a less upscale subdivision with less expensive finishes, and it's a $300K house.

Just because the Jests did something stupid doesn't mean that other teams are as stupid. They also traded for a 39-year-old QB a couple of years ago. Bell's big contract done 6 years ago sure isn't going to make teams line up to sign disgruntled RBs for big bucks. If anything, it's a cautionary tale for NOT paying RBs.

I don't think that it will ever come to the Bills "forcing" Cook to play for them. He has a valid contract for 2025, and it's in his best interest to play as well as he can. There is also no deadline for the Bills to extend him until after the 2025 season, so the two sides can keep talking for quite a while. If they don't come to agreement, the Bills can either franchise him (which would be a nice pay day for Cook) or let him walk.

Temperamental WRs get paid, especially when they've amassed multiple 1000-yard receiving seasons because they're hard to find and tend to have pretty long effective careers. They can also be game breakers when paired with good/great QBs, which means that teams need excellent WRs. RBs are not WRs. Most RBs start declining in their late 20s because of the wear and tear on their bodies. It's also not the 1990s when teams absolutely needed great RBs. Cook's also not a great RB like Saquan Barkley or Derrick Henry. He's not even an every down RB. It's unlikely that many teams are going to be willing to pay top dollar for a temperamental RB who's not an every down back. I don't think holding out or playing with a crappy attitude is in Cook's best interest if he and the Bills can't come to terms before the season starts.