Mikey152

But that is where you are wrong... We are spending 1/6th of our cap on WR this season. If we had Hopkins, we would have never gotten under the cap this year. Just so I am clear, they brought Hopkins in. They talked to him, and I am sure they ran numbers. So I am just supposed to take it from you, an armchair GM...that they "COULD HAVE" had Hopkins, but they chose not because they couldn't afford it, but because they don't care about WR enough? Do you hear yourself?

And 18 Million this year with a 12 million dead cap hit... Can't afford it.

Last season? They clearly tried...he got way more money than they could reasonably afford (2/26). They didn't have anywhere near that much cap space.

you realize that the Bills would only throw the ball like 300 times if that happened, right?

It is funny how times change...I remember when Matt Millen was DESTROYED for taking WR high. When the Bills were crazy for trading up for a WR. Trading tons of assets and money for a WR is NOT conventional and is NOT universally considered a good idea. Honestly, it feels very "fantasy football" to me in a lot of ways. So maybe that is the real debate...it's not really about who these receivers are so much as who they aren't. Some of us are amazed at what they bought with the money they had, and others wanted them to bust out the credit card and mortgage the future. That's the real debate.

I don't think they could do that this season without SEVERELY handicapping themselves in other ways...either trading next years first pick (at least) or maybe even two, and in the case of Aiyuk they would also need to structure a contract that severely hampers what they can do in coming seasons (and this one, if we are honest). Rob Peter to pay Paul. They already spend a ton on WR in both money and assets. Getting a top WR isn't so important that you just tank your team. They likely would have just done more to keep Diggs in that case...that was the best case scenario. Maybe for the fans...but on the field? Anybody they got in a later round wasn't going to be as good as those guys this season...and they wouldn't have the pick from that round to boot. Flat out...if they can fix Claypool he is better than all but maybe the top 3 from this draft. In their opinion, signing him and drafting another position was better than drafting a WR and signing a DT/RB. We will see if they were right.

I don't think upgrade this season was ever really realistic. Certainly not on paper, anyway. The Diggs situation pretty much destroyed any chance of that. Hamler maybe... But Claypool had two seasons in Pittsburgh that would indicate he is capable. Then he fell off a cliff. So he is definitely a reclamation project....I'd argue one with some merit based on his age, skill set, and performance history

I understand. The reality is, the falling out with Diggs hurts this season. 31 million and nothing to show for it. So, on it's surface...probably not an ideal WR room. Certainly not looking like a top one without a miracle, at any rate. At the very least, we will need some luck for it to be good and the chances of great are slim. Having said that, I actually think they did a GREAT job under the circumstances. They built a room that could be decent, especially with JA at QB, and somehow managed to pull off more depth than last year despite having one hand tied behind their back. They also did it without mortgaging the future or significantly limiting other parts of the team. Could they go more all in on this season and worry about next year next year? Maybe. I just don't think it would be wise. I don't think ANYBODY here is arguing we have the best WR in the NFL. If anything, what I am struggling with on this thread is that people act like that was ever a realistic possibility. There are actually people that are mad that we didn't trade into the top 10 or spend next years money today to get some name WR demanding a trade that will cost a fortune in $ and picks. So instead of saying we need to have the best receivers in the NFL, how about you tell me what they could have done, realistically, in the last two years that would have made a huge difference to our WR core without gutting the rest of the roster or destroying our cap in the next couple seasons. Everyone wants to talk about how the Chiefs drafted all these WR so they care more than the Bills...but they also traded the best WR in the NFL in his prime instead of signing him to a deal, and they won two super bowls.

We also had Beasley and Brown on the roster for two of the seasons, and we drafted a TE in the first when Gabe Davis didn’t work out. You guys are completely disingenuous. I haven’t looked it up, but my guess is the Bills have SIGNIFICANTLY outspent the chiefs in cap dollars at the WR position over the last 5 years. this season, when you add the dead money for Diggs, they are spending like 1/6th of the cap on WR, and that’s still not good enough.

This is such a silly argument to make. Tyreek was traded two seasons ago. The chiefs have been trying to find his replacement ever since. They’ve also fail, multiple times. over that same span, how many first and second round TEs did they draft? Could it be because they already had a good one? The Bills, on the other hand, had one of the top WR in the NFL. He probably made more than KCs entire receiving core. They also clearly thought they hit on Gabe Davis. As such, they invested modestly at WR over the last two seasons. Off-season without Davis and later Diggs (but no money) they drafted a WR with their first pick, signed a FA to 30 mil deal, and brought in a bunch of guys who have had recent success on the NFL on cheap prove it deals. Next season they are likely to spend on skill players too unless somebody blows up this year. Not exactly apples to oranges.

And yet, they had two receivers in the top 32. So did the titans. Meanwhile, the packers did not. Neither did the Bills. Or 9ers. This isn’t fantasy football. Individual stats don’t always tell the whole picture. I don’t care who does what so long as the team stats look good.

Here's the point you keep seem to be missing, so I will try one last time then I think it is time to move on from this thread. The best WR aren't always the ones with the best stats, because WR stats are heavily situational. Rashee Rice wasn't the 28th best receiver in the NFL last year...he was just the #1 WR on a team with Andy Reid as a coach and Patrick Mahomes as a QB. There are probably 50 guys in the NFL that could have done as good or better in that situation. I mean, Juju's stats the year before were identical and he is pretty much a JAG at this point. The Bills are gonna throw the ball 500 times, at least. Josh Allen is their QB. So either somebody is gonna catch some passes, or Josh is gonna have a terrible season and we are gonna start to question if he is really the guy. Honestly, if he needs to be surrounded with probowlers to win and throw for 4000 yards, he isn't the guy I thought he was. I don't know...Green bay did pretty well with that model. Jordan Love threw for 4100 yards and almost led the league in TDs...their leading receiver had 800 yards.

Let’s state this all another way. if the Bills don’t have any receivers in the top 32, Josh Allen probably isn’t the quarterback we think he is. if you look at the top 40, the distribution among teams is pretty high. Most teams have one or two (correlates to targets I posted earlier). Odds are high we have one guy in the top 20 and/or two guys in the top 40 and/or 3 guys in the top 50. if that DOESNT happen, something went horribly wrong, like Josh got hurt.

You do realize the Bills traded for, signed or drafted four WR drafted in the first or second round THIS offseason, right? Dude, you are wild. The way you so seamlessly add TE and then take them out again in the same post is a work of art.

Just gonna leave this here

Maybe, but McDermott generally doesn’t play rookies unless he has to or they are clearly better, so I think if Claypool wins the spot he wins the spot. IMO, MVS is Claypool insurance.

🙄 I guess Tee Higgins and Brandon Aiyuk and Jaylon Waddle aren’t as good as we thought. Probably St Brown and Puka too, since they play in the slot. If your theory about not drawing top coverage is the reason, why are all the top guys on Harmony list #1 WRs? Shouldn’t more backups be up there? He doesn’t address it because clearly Diggs was still on the team at that point. Through the first half of the season, he was probably the Commanders best receiver. He sure did smoke Benford a few times when they played the Bills.

Honestly, Claypool is fascinating. I really thought he was gonna be the next Mike Evans after his rookie season. His physical traits are top of the league...it's really too bad that his head wasn't screwed on straight, but maybe we will get lucky. Im not really pinning any hopes on it, but he is a real lottery ticket.

I already posted this 30 pages ago, but here it is again...more people should watch it anyway

I kink of think of the whole thing like the Jellybean experiment... Put some jellybeans in a jar and ask 100 people how many there are. Some people will be WAY too low, some people will be WAY too high, and some people will get pretty close. But what's wild is, most of the time the group average is closer to the actual number than most individual guesses. The truth on all the rankings is probably somewhere in the middle of all the various extreme opinions floating throughout the collective conscious.

Curtis Samuel is one of the top man beaters in the NFL. Aside from familiarity with Brady, it’s probably the number one reason they brought him in…people are seriously sleeping on him if they think he is just a gadget guy/slot. I would bet he easily leads the team in touches at WR this season

Seriously? A contract? That's your response? Im curious...do you think Puka Nicua is better than Tee Higgins and Jaylen Waddle?

Bad math? You might want to check yours...or did you even do it? Even if they only pass 515 times and Kincaid gets 100 targets, that is still 415 more targets. Even if we go with 50 for cook and 50 for Knox to further suppress WR, you STILL have 315 targets left. If we take another 100 targets for backups, that's 215 targets for the top 3 receivers. Maybe it is 100-65-50 or 72-72-71, but either way, That's definitely more targets than last season for at least two of them (Samuel had 92 last year). And that is all pretty conservative...assuming nobody steps up and we spread the ball quite a bit. Based on what most teams in the NFL do, this is unlikely to occur but we will see. Either way, who really cares? But please, enlighten me...what, aside from his stats, makes St Brown so awesome? And to be clear, no one guy has to be St Brown for us to play like the Lions, because 2-4 for the lions was not very good. We may have a slightly different distribution and be able to achieve similar results due to our depth.

Commanders had 636 pass attempts. Niners had 491. Everyone else was in between. Most teams had normal distributions with the "#1" getting 20-30% of the targets, then a few guys with 10-20%, then a bunch of stragglers with less than 10%. There are a few teams where there were two "#1s" and a thinner middle, and a few teams with no real #1 and more in the middle, but usually it was a normal distribution. So...either somebody on the Bills will see a lot more targets, or everyone will see a moderate increase. But what definitely WONT happen is that nobody will get more targets. We aren't throwing 300 times.

Sort of... 35 receivers had 100+ targets. They played for 27 different teams. So either: Targets are related only to talent and most teams have similar receiver talent or Targets are related to opportunity and #1 WR on bad teams get more targets than #2 receivers on good teams. Most teams in the NFL will throw 500-600 times this season. Somebody is gonna get those targets, even on teams with bad WR. Side note...all but two of those WR had less than 800 yards receiving.