VW82

Oliver had a bit of a down year last year compared to the previous two but he's better than an average starter by almost any calculation. As for our other DL, using PFF as a neutral reference, Rousseau had an 85 grade and AJ was at 80. That's way above average. Yes, we signed Von for a talent ceiling upgrade and it blew up in our faces. We were a bit unlucky there. Diggs was also a talent ceiling upgrade, and for the first three years he was easily a top 10 WR in the league, if not top 5. You don't expect to get top 5-10 players at their position picking in the bottom half of the first round. So yes, only getting four years instead of five of team control wasn't ideal, and the dead cap is way less than ideal, but we got all pro level play for a good chunk of it, and have a top 40 pick incoming next draft because of the Houston trade. Characterizing the Diggs trade/era as a disaster is a total misreading of events imo. Beane isn't perfect. He was the one who put us in cap hell in the first place, and as you point out, none of our top picks outside of Josh have become superstars. What we've had instead is rosters stock full of quality players, including those drafted in rounds 1&2, who are mostly above average for their position with a few guys like Taron and Milano who became top guys out of nowhere. I just don't see how anyone can make the claim that Beane hasn't been way above average.

I also like our depth, though to be fair they're all completely unproven.

I've never agreed with this point. Yes, we didn't exactly hit with Edmunds, but he also got 50M guaranteed. Elam looks like a miss though there's still time. Ford and Bashum were misses. Kincaid and O'Cyrus look like hits. Cook was a hit. Josh was a home run. Trading for Diggs was at least a double. Oliver and Rousseau were hits even some around these parts have expressed disappointment. AJ looked like a miss but he keeps getting better and now he's a re-signed starter on a good deal. That's a hit. By my count, that's 9/12 in the first two rounds if we write off Elam and including the Diggs trade. Or you could be overly harsh and include Edmunds and AJ as misses, in which case it's still 7/12. It's too early to say either way on Coleman or Bishop. I'm betting most teams aren't hitting those percentages.

McGovern moved positions. Edwards is a bit of an unknown (at least with us). Spencer Brown needs to prove last year wasn't a fluke, and that he can stay healthy...Mitch Morse was our second best OL, and with Diggs and Davis gone, teams will surely stack 8 in the box. I like our Oline but we probably need more info to say they're definitively good let alone top 3 in football.

Every year that goes by, my respect for Beane grows. This offseason was easily his best imo. I'm still dubious of the Coleman pick, but everything else he did was aces. Moving on from aging vets, getting all those restructures done when it looked like we wouldn't even be able to field a team, and yes, nailing the draft. It's way too early to say that last point so definitively, but there's a chance we picked up 5-6 useful rotational pieces in that draft with several of those potential future starters. At this point, it's not an accident Beane keeps unearthing all these mid-late round gems.

At this point, it feels dumb to bet against the Josh/McBeane infrastructure. That said, we have 60M in dead cap and one of the hardest schedules in the L. Jests and Phins have injury concerns due to age/fragility, but their overall roster talent is at least on par if not better than ours. Plus, it took an herioc five game win streak to finish last season just to make the playoffs. 10 wins seems appropriate and that's probably not enough to win the division, though perhaps enough to make the playoffs.

I think all four of Kinkaid, Coleman, Shakir, and Samuel will be deep threats: the first two with their size/hands, and the last two with their speed to take the top off. The verticals in Brady's offense aren't going anywhere, and I bet we hit on more of those this year because we're going to be a good running team from the jump. My point was more that we're probably not going to see a bunch of double moves and hard digs across the middle because we didn't see much of that from Brady last year, so it's not that big of a deal that I don't trust Coleman to beat anyone with that stuff.

The more I think about this pick and what we saw from Brady last year, the more I'm talking myself into Coleman being a good fit. (I have spoken...to myself) Brady did the complimentary football thing but when we did pass it was a lot of hitches and screens...basically lots of stuff close to the LOS with some verticals mixed in, not a lot of complicated routes. Get him the ball quick and let him YAC or block/pick for guys. I think part of our collective fan problem is we've adopted the mindset that Brady is going to really open up the offense and make it his own in year 2 in which case we maybe we have a raw rookie that will struggle. But what if that's not the plan? What if Brady's 2023 offense is the offense? Coleman can do that.

I took a hiatus from Bills message boards for a good while there but I was pretty active on the team website in the early 00s. Some of the people here like Shaw obv migrated over, but lots didn't.

You'd have a better case if the idea was re-stocking the pipeline with WR prospects for for 25 and 26. Rookie WRs are notoriously unrelaible. Claiming we needed to take a second one because we lost Diggs and Davis doesn't make a lot of sense. Perhaps losing those guys means we need to look for a trade or post June 1st signing. Perhaps we should've better anticipated Diggs blowing up our plans post FA in the first place. These aren't problems a 2nd or 3rd round rookie is going to fix. It's unrealistic that Coleman will fix them in year one. We have a good amount of receiving talent in our TEs and backs. That's where we're going to look if guys flame out (and maybe even if they don't).

The collective amnesia of last season is interesting. It feels like a lot of you processed the first half as "it was all Dorsey's fault" as appose to Josh having issues staying in the pocket and taking what the defense gave him. The whole "maserati" thing flamed out as Josh repeatedly threw downfield into baits and traps that resulted in break ups, drive killers, and picks. Brady came in and re-introduced the running game which included designed runs from Josh. We had Josh spreading it around with a focus on completions and keeping the chains moving. That's when our offense stopped being so one-dimensional and we became dangerous as a contender. Now so many Bills fans want to go back to finding another "stud" so our "maserati" can be unleashed again. That isn't what's worked. That's not really who Josh is when he's at his best. That's not how we're going to take the next step to eventually contending for SBs.

Huh? We hardly wasted any years with Jim as a top 2 QB (if he ever was that...Marino, Elway, Aikman, Montana, Young, Favre). Our defense was ranked 4th, 2nd, and 1st the last three years. We had one of the top wideouts in the game. We had home field and the ball in this last one. Just because we've repeatedly fallen short vs. KC, that doesn't make them wasted years. Josh came up short this last time. Is he a wasted player too?

It is a rebuild. Josh has had lots of help around him, including a good coach that's put together a good program. You don't go 12-5 every year and win playoff games with only a good QB. Nonsense take.

Yeah, no. McBeane have been extended. We just started a rebuild. We’re coming off a sustained track record of success by any measure that isn’t just SB or bust. Some of you guys aren’t living in reality. Also, why does it feel like so many here just became fans in 2018? Do you guys not remember what two decades of incompetence actually looks like??

They’ve been heading for trouble ever since Covid hit and the cap went backwards. Some of it was bad luck. Obv the Von signing didn’t help, but we would’ve been in trouble even without Von which should tell you something. I think our cap coming into this year is something detractors can justifiably point to as a critique of Beane. There other thing too (e.g. how many top 100ish picks have we spent on backs?). He also did some pretty great things like drafting Josh, trading for Diggs (who was a big part of our cap bind), and rebuilding our lines. But just looking at what he pulled off to get us under the cap without losing everyone, and then finding potentially six guys in this draft who could be meaningful contributors this year…it’s a win by any objective standard. The only way it’s not a win is if your only criteria is finding a game changing wideout today (and for all we know Coleman might be that guy).

I always have to laugh when defenses play zone vs us. Josh excels vs zone. Diggs and Beasley were always so good finding soft spots. Kincaid is obviously really good vs zone. Anyone dumb enough to try and zone us deserves what they get. I will say that I’m interested in Coleman’s blocking. He’s a big dude and could really help there if he’s committed to it.

Davis was another pick within the trend of guys who can step in and make a contribution this year. No projects. Even Coleman, who looks like a project, will be able to play meaningful snaps as a rookie. I don’t expect Davis will ever make a pro bowl or anything but he doesn’t need to. He just needs to run, catch, and pass pro competently so we can give our actual pro bowler a breather.

No one is saying we're a better team. Clearly, we took a step back. Beane acknowledged it was a transition year. We had to restructure everyone and cut and trade a bunch of our best guys. We had holes to fill all over the roster. You're mad because we couldn't do enough at WR. Everyone is mad about that, but there were like 50 things that needed to happen over the last few months to even field a somewhat competitive team and Bills managed to accomplish like 47 of them. It's not bad.

Bet we run the ball more and play action to offset

It's really not that bad. Kincaid is great receiver. He's going to get a much bigger role. Samuel is solid. Cook catches out of the backfield. Coleman looks like an upgrade over Gabe. It's just seeing Shakir out there in place of Diggs that's going to be jarring. Bet we see more 12 personnel this year.

Said this in other threads, but I wonder if the addition of Davis will free up Cook for more snaps lined up as a receiver.

For those still freaking out, just talk yourself into Cook playing more snaps out wide now that we have Davis in the backfield. Cook, Shakir, Samuel, Kincaid. Coleman can play the Gabe role and block a lot while he learns how to run routes. It's still an upgrade.

This is probably the best player we drafted and yet he has the lowest page count. bump. Edit: total speculation but one thing this pick might do is re-energize McD. Poyer and Hyde were getting old and slow. Bishop is fast, plays all over the field, and Qbs the defense. With Milano and Von back, there's a chance our defense will be really, really good this year.

Or some of these young guys might surprise and we might get more from guys like Milano and Von Miller than some are expecting. We still have Josh and no one else in the AFCE has Josh. But yes, it's a rebuilding year.

Two months ago we were like 50M over the cap and it looked like we would lose everyone. Beane got basically every vet to restructure or they were cut/traded, and in the case of Von he actually gave up guaranteed money. We got to bring back guys like Epenesa and Jones who I was sure were goners. We got to sign a guy like Curtis Samuel. That's rabbit out of the hat type stuff. But even still, we went into this draft with major holes at not only WR but C, S, DT, DE, RB, ST. Unproven guys all over the roster. I'm not sure about Coleman, but Bishop, Carter, Davis, VPG, and Solomon are all guys we can probably count on to play meaningful snaps for us at some point this year. Including Coleman, that's six guys. Name me another draft we've had where we're projecting six rookies to play. I'm not saying we found a bunch of studs, but some of them look like great pick ups for where they were drafted.