MrEpsYtown

Touch situation here. I do suppose it is nice to see Knox, Croom, Sweeney get some extra reps. Not much in free agency outside of AJ Derby, Ryan Griffin (who was arrested for punching a wall.) Ofcourse Jake Fisher is still out there, and we all know he is familiar with the playbook. Interesting UDFA out there is Stetson tight end Donald Parham, who was a an UDFA of the Lions and waived after rookie minicamp. I don't know if he was hurt or just terrible. But I thought he seemed interesting pre draft.

I know we like to talk about process, but boy Bengals process is bad. Use numerous high draft picks on offensive linemen who have flaws, Jake Fisher, Ogbuehi, Bobby Hart. Use a top ten pick on a guy who runs fast but can't do much else and was and is always hurt. Swap first round picks with the Bills for a franchise LT, highly paid, and move him to guard to accommodate your next highly drafted tackle who has flaws. Use a first round pick on an injured center who is more suited to guard in Billy Price (he was terrible btw.) Resign Bobby Hart and get prized free agent John Miller, both for pretty significant money. Their process is a mess imo and they are headed to a bad place. This is example A of how spending high draft picks on "the trenches," isn't always a great idea.

I think the Bengals will be one of the worst teams in the league this year. New coach will be way in over his head ala Steve Wilks. Plus John Miller.

Yes I have been joking about it tongue in cheek, but Gase ruined Tannehill (not that he was great to begin with), who was there before he got to Miami. So I could see him and his new GM finding their own guy next year.

Darnold and Adams next!

I honestly think they can both make the team. I really like Easley as a back up slot and I tried to hype him up a bit here. I don't know how, but I feel like they both make it, based solely on their college film and their projection into the E-P system.

I went back and watch some Senior Bowl practices that were on my DVR. I have to say that I was impressed with the work Sills was doing in one on ones, especially in the red zone portion of practice. And he was beating guys like Lonnie Johnson. During team portions he ran some great routes and found open pockets in zones, quarterback (I think it was Minshew) didn't target him too much. I am going to go back and rewatch the game and watch Sweeney and Sills specifically. On a side note, everybody on the broadcast had some really good things to say about Sweeney and Charles Davis compared him to Mark Andrews. They seemed to like Sweeney a lot more than Drew Sample who went in the second round. Perhaps' Sweeney's slow combine time skewed scores on him. One other note, but that Deebo Samuel guy is going to be good.

No reason to over think this situation. Jackson is pretty much the perfect type of quarterback to develop. He has all of the tools and an immense upside but he is very raw. Just work with him and see what happens. Best case scenario, he develops into something people want and you can trade him for a pick. Worst case he doesn't develop and moves to a different position or is released. The most likely outcome is he develops into a reliable backup after spending time on the practice squad.

Maybe he will trade Darnold. He really likes Luke Falk. ?‍♂️

Lee, yuck. I remember a lot of Bills fans wanted him pre draft that year. I still don't understand why. He was the Andre Dillard, Mason Rudolph of that draft for me. I think he sucks, but in fairness to him, he is not a 3-4 inside linebacker. He was miscast from day 1. If the Chiefs play him as the WILL in their Spags 4-3, I think he could be serviceable.

Too bad Ed Wang was terrible, because I always wanted to see the Wang-Levitre-Wood left side. Oh well. Guy was a good player here, but a very specific scheme fit. He had a nice career for himself here and I hope he comes back and gets involved with the team in some way. What makes me feel old is things like Fernando tatis Jr in baseball. Like, I remember when his dad was a rookie, he had an entire career, retired, and now his son is in the majors. That kind of stuff makes me do a double take.

Very sad. RIP and condolences to his family.

Gotta beat New England. To me that's what it is all about. We have been up and down and hovering around the middle of the road for awhile now. Win the AFC EAst, and everything changes. I don't want to just wait for those guys to retire. I want to beat their asses so bad that they are forced to retire.

The lazy thing to do is to compare Sills to Reilly. I get it, they are tall, white, and UDFAs. In Reilly's 4 year career (just 28 games-various injuries and DUI ) at Nebraska, he had 70 catches, 1275 yards, 6 touchdowns. He was a shot in the dark upside play. He was going to be an UDFA regardless. In Sills' 3 year career (also 28 games) at West Virginia, he had 132 catches, 2097 yards, 35 touchdowns. He did all this as a former quarterback who didn't really know what he was doing. This is a highly productive receiver who needs refinement, but displayed many of the skills that you need to succeed in the NFL. Most draft people had him high in the fourth, and no one would have batted an eye if he went in the late third. I'm not sure why he didn't go drafted, I'm guessing all of the other recievers being pushed down the board pushed him out, but this isn't your run of the mill UDFA. Just my 2 cents.

Agree with this 100%. Anybody with eyes could see that he blew. Some of us Bills fans, myself included, get behind mediocre players and tend to look at their mediocrity with rose colored glasses and consistently make excuses for them. But the EJ excuses just made no sense. I didn't like the draft pick, but to be fair, I liked Matt Barkley and Tyler Bray...Was I excited at points early in EJ's career? Sure...I remember being really excited for that Browns game vs Brian Hoyer where EJ hurt himself. But as time went on, there was zero progress being made and he clearly didn't have it. Same thing happened with Trent and Fitz and Kelsay and Clay and James Hardy and Preston Brown and John Miller and Nathan Peterman for some (where u guys at?) and it is literally happening with Zay Jones right now. Anyway, I wish EJ well and perhaps he has a future in broadcasting because he is a well spoken, good looking guy. While his slow eyes may hurt him on the football field, in broadcasting he has a rewind and instant replay option, so he should be fine.

Probabły should have just drafted Matt Barkley ?‍♂️

Fancy little RPO there. I like it.

To me Kroft-Knox-Smith-Sweeney make the final roster. To me, Croom is a fun experiment, like Logan Thomas, Jake Fisher. It's an interesting experiment when your team sucks, but Croom does not provide anything special here. He should be out. I get that he dates the bosses' daughter, but i doesn't make football sense for him to be on the team and I trust that the brain trust here will understand that. Knox can do everything Croom can do, is faster, and a much better blocker already. Kroft is a very underrated receiver as well. No need to have such a 1 dimensional player hogging a roster spot this year.

I think this is a fair question. For me, using an extra tackle is just a little different. While he reports as eligible on plays, there's very little chance he goes out for a pass and teams largely ignore these guys, which gives them an extra guy to play the run. In the rare situation where the guy goes out for a pass, defenses just leave him and eat the play. While Lee Smith is not much of a receiver, you have to cover him and defend him as a true tight end. He is running routes in practice and catching balls all of the time. He is trained in all of the nuances of the game, which is not something a tackle eligible player will have. This is likely where the Jake Fisher experiment failed. He's been kicksteping for the last 8 years, not running routes and catching balls. There is simply not enough practice time for a guy to train as a tackle and a tight end. The tight end is also used to moving around the formation and being out in space and blocking from off the line. I guess my point is that even though the blocking tight end is not much of a threat in the pass game, he is a much higher threat than any tackle eligible player. Defenses have to respect him. That's just my 2 cents.

Fisher release makes sense. Lee Smith is pretty much what one would hope Fisher could develop into. I was excited about Fisher, but the release makes sense.

This is also a Bobby Johnson connection. He was the Raiders tight ends coach when they signed Lee Smith as a free agent, and was his coach 2015-2017.

I compare this to the Derek Anderson addition last year. I think you are adding a veteran who plays his butt off to a room full of young guys. I think he is a very limited player, but I think is a addition will be huge for the tight end room imo, especially in terms of teh development of Dawson Knox. Smith is basically what we hope Fisher could become. I'm interested to see the guaranteed money here.

With his size and length he would not project there. However, he does have a lot of speed off the snap. I don't envision this scenario happening, but I could see him rushing from other positions in sub packages. Oliver was born to be a three technique though.

Not a great list. The most interesting guy is AJ Derby who was originally drafted by the Patriots and spent some time with Brian Daboll there. He has some upside as a receiver but not much of a blocker. A guy who is a free agent but is technically a fullback is Ryan Hewitt, former Colt and Bengal. I like the fact that Hewitt doubles as a tight end and a fullback. It gives the offense a good amount flexibilty and you don't have to keep a dedicated fullback on the roster. Another guy out there who can serve multiple roles is Dan Vitale, who the Bills claimed and released a few years ago. Vitale was a superback for Northwestern in college. He can catch, block, and run the ball and can double as a tight end. Vitale ran a 4.6 at the combine. He's bounced around the league, but there is a lot of upside there imo.

Johnson is a large human being.