Richard Noggin

Probably not the first poster to call *bonkers* on this matter-of-fact spending spree (~30+M against the cap in 2023 even with extremely backloaded deals and future dead cap burdens, not including a Singletary deal and without actually improving the offense at all) for a team way OVER the cap with all the above players already off the books. If the Bills pull all the cap accounting levers available to them only to tread water and get older at so many non-premium defensive positions, that would represent stagnation, to me. A lack of ideas. Kicking the can just to stand still.

That is high end irony. It's unclear here if you're remembering the recent "adjusting" with "the WR Coaching group." It didn't generate as much discussion as I'd have anticipated.

Your screen name is Buffalo Super Fan, yet you characterize the 90s Bills as relying solely on their superstar QB?! That's egregiously wrong. That team was absolutely STACKED. For that first SB run, Kelly was throwing to James Lofton and Andre Reed, and handing off (and throwing to) Thurman Thomas. Gold Jackets errwhere. The defense was loaded. There was a contingent of Bills fans back then who argued that Jim Kelly was often, in fact, holding the team back, at times. There were calls for Reich. One could argue that Kelly's ego didn't always call Thurman's number enough...like, say, in their first Super Bowl appearance where Belichick's gameplan relied on Kelly's aggressive tendencies. Even if you ignore Kelly's alleged bullheadedness, the roster was inarguably ELITE. And wasn't Gilbert Perrault part of an iconic LINE of forwards?! Weren't the THREE of them celebrated in conjunction? Hasek and Allen seem like fair examples of your take, but some of these others simply don't.

One way to put things in perspective is to ask: would Bills fans prefer the Jets land Carr, or Lamar? Our answers (and rationale) to that will be revealing. (I'm not immediately sure which I prefer; my brain wants to shout out Lamar Jackson due to availability concerns and his less-than-optimal WR utilization (stunting Wilson's progression would be a bonus). I worry that Derrek Carr, under favorable conditions, can competently steer the Jets offense. Just as long as they keep him extra clean. For a guy who wants to be a leader, he sure does appear to wilt under duress.)

Was Sugar Ray really an actual Ska band before they sold out? I mean, good for them for steering into the popular skid, but I find McGrath's TV persona to run pretty damned counter to most authentic ska band sensibilities.

Not here to dispute Woods's effectiveness last season. But I AM here to question how effective the Titans's #1 receiving option SHOULD have been, by comparison, no matter who it was, given the Titans offensive personnel, scheme, and results overall. So many baked-in excuses for an otherwise proudly-tenacious player (Woods).

You're kinda jumping the shark with the bolded part. Suddenly Edmunds is some victim of poor coaching/utilization? While Milano is simultaneously an example of positional success under the same regime?

Edmunds must be allowed to move on (barring a Milano-esque discount to return) in order for this org to begin to reign in and redistribute its cap from defense to offense. Gotta give the franchise (QB17) EVERY advantage available. Can't waste any more seasons pretending the Bills have a rookie-deal QB. Time to out-coach your "coverage"/talent on the defensive side of the roster.

I don't spend a lot of time thinking about "the trolls."

Being fans should have nothing to do with our capacity to interpret statistics. Even the Super Bowl favorite each year is statistically unlikely to win it all, compared to the field. Weren't the Bills THE betting line favorite last offseason, but still only ~8% likely to actually do it? So even Bills fans, and maybe especially Bills fans, can appreciate how statistically UNlikely a Super Bowl win is for ANY team in a given season, no matter how successful they've been and project to be. Nothing is guaranteed. Nothing given. Neither Dan Fouts nor Dan Marino ever won a Super Bowl, despite how awesome they were. Thus, voting against any championships in Buffalo is actually smart.

Looking at the bolded, let's take it even further: Josh Allen functions as a kind of multiplier for resources invested in offensive skill positions. WRs, for sure, have been having career years here lately. Imagine the returns on another (after Diggs) 1st round investment? Maybe even more significant: resources invested in the offensive line function as a kind of multiplier for Josh Allen. That starts to get exponential. Go get some blue chip linemen.

I REALLY hope the Bills DON'T pay Edmunds a top market value deal, no matter what happens next. Maybe a Milano-ish discount would be worth considering, but I prefer totally reallocating the cap space to the offensive side of the ledger. That being said, IF instead that 5-year, 1st-round asset they traded UP to select leaves in FA without compensation AND the Bills then spend 1st or 2nd day draft capital on a replacement (the year AFTER spending a 3rd round pick on Bernard) for a D that overwhelmingly fields only 2 LBs...I'll probably be difficult to console. So I hope you are wrong.

Love this sequence, gents.

Totally agree that Al-Shaair looks poised to break out from what I saw of San Fran in 2022...but then when I look him up I am surprised to see that his snap count and production were actually both cut in half in 2022, after a big jump in 2021. I'm guessing injuries/availability of Warner and Greenlaw are inversely correlated with Al-Shaair's opportunities and production. So maybe that drop-off helps to dampen his pending FA value? I'd argue that Milano's presence was more predictive of defensive success than was Edmunds's.

It would make more sense under different cap circumstances, but I guess we don't exactly know what Beane is willing and able to do to manipulate those circumstances.

We get taught that being a sore loser is bad form. But I'd argue that being a sore winner is much worse. Guys like Brady and Jordan, for example, are rightly considered GOATs, but WOW do they have some toxic chips on their shoulders. JuJu, of course, uses TikTok and Twitter to amplify his own brand of self-absorption, where social media engagement supersedes any duty to teammates, tradition, or employer. The NFL is just a vehicle for driving his online influence. Which is his prerogative, as long as teams will tolerate it.

Here's a cool top-10 WR prospect workup that frankly makes it seem like there could be potential difference makers available on late Day 1 or early Day 2 (Wilson out of Stanford is favorably comped with Davante Adams, for example, and given a 2nd round grade, along with an interesting mix of smaller-ish guys with some speed): This would suggest some boom-or-bust (overdrafted) prospects available late in Rd 1, with some possible value in early Rd 2. Some team will snag a stud WR in that 25-35 range, and some team will pick a guy who doesn't progress. Who the heck will be the Bills WR Coach? That will have an impact on selection and especially on development.

Guessing I'm not at all the first to point out that the first round this year doesn't line up favorably for picking a WR at 27. So that elite prospect would require some dealing.

Allen's historic production in the two playoff games really skewed the collective memory of what last season's offense actually looked like. They were 7-6 after a thumping by the Colts in the cold rain, and then an embarrassing first half deficit against Tampa Bay that a remarkable 2nd half offensive rebirth couldn't quite surmount. That offense was inconsistent, and didn't seem to sustain balanced production until late in the season around when Rick Bates took over the LG spot for good. And even then, they sputtered for quarters. Gabe Davis was out of synch for stretches. They couldn't or didn't run the ball well in their losses. Sound familiar? In 2021 they peaked in the playoffs. In 2022 they didn't.

Is this sarcasm? Reads like it. If so, I'd suggest not letting the imperialist conquerors do their own marketing. If not, then cheers.

I'll respond ignorantly without googling Ben Johnson. I can only assume he's a more paternalistic presence, like Dabs was. I did NOT love Daboll's baldly deliberate gameplans that were slow to adjust in-game and rarely leveraged a synced up run and pass action to keep defensive players on their heels, but I'd be a fool to ignore what his presumably hard coaching did for Allen. We watched Dabs chew out a young Josh Allen on more than one occasion. And one of Allen's defining traits has been his coachability, or ability to absorb and improve upon legitimate criticism. Seemed like that kind of humility and accountability was missing at times this season. Replays reveal a QB who overlooked or didn't find quickly enough the short and intermediate solutions to various coverage and pressure outcomes. There is the Ravens game, which was not a pretty passing day, but really it started in the 2nd half against Green Bay. We started to see mistakes that didn't make sense. We saw demonstrable regression. We saw our elite playmaker unwilling to play small-ball. Suddenly the red zone (which had been an historically-efficacious area for Allen) was a mine field. Defenses were attacking Josh Allen and he wasn't solving those riddles with humility.

This is so true. By necessity, because they were losing, the Bills let it ALL hang out. And it worked, sort of. It certainly exploited some of what Spags does, and challenged Reid to counter (either with ball control/clock maintenance OR with the spread-out, on-field options that let Kelce identify and exploit an inexplicable coverage blind spot). And one could argue that not a lot of split-out TEs would have been able to dictate that rapid solution. So it could have been more talent than coaching, on the offensive side, when all is said and done. But whatever. The Bills wilted. They called timeouts and STILL didn't field PROGRESSIVE-minded, forward-leaning solutions. They fell back onto the WORST cliches of last-ditch prevent defense.

I'll go ahead and disagree here. Daboll is absolutely a great coach. He has become a great leader of coaches and players alike with his interpersonal authenticity and professional diligence. Dudes love Dabs. That's important, especially early on. However, Daboll has ONLY had ANY offensive success calling plays with Josh Allen as his QB. He didn't call plays this season with the New Jersey Football Giants. So I see Daboll as someone who is meant for the Head Coaching job. He's a hell of a teacher, a uniter, an organizer, but he had some serious trouble marrying the run and the pass games while in Buffalo, despite the offensive success we enjoyed. So defensive players had some advantages, leaning into the pass rush, feasting on some meh players in predictable pass and run situations. What Daboll DID do VERY effectively was get stompin' mad at Allen when he refused to take what the defense was giving him. THAT was the missing ingredient this year, even as the offense starting stringing together a run game. Allen was being an impatient, sophomoric, myopic stallion too often in 2022. His greatest successes had come from ELITE patience, precision, and zen, and then of course that KC playoff explosion that effed up all our expectations...

You can't micromanage superstars. You shouldn't even micromanage GOOD talent. Those who need constant management and reinforcement benefit more when it comes from their colleagues, anyways. Horizontal buy-in. Marv Levy knew what he had in his (kinda dooshy) team back in the day (they were probably just too ungovernable). Andy Reid understands who he's dealing with. Et cetera. Success is the best team-builder. Tomlin is pretty good at it, given some of the WRs he's had to "govern" since the real winning subsided.

Jordan Phillips is obviously not on the level of Allen, Diggs, Miller, Milano, and Hyde. He is talented, but he's streaky AF. We need more guys who don't ever wilt. More guys who are kinda unwilling to take losing in stride. More guys who won't accept stagnation.