WideNine

...and Bodine is a UFA after next season too so I guess depth could be a going concern if they have no plans to resign him.

Could just be a stop-gap veteran measure and the guy they really want will be a FA in 2020, or they could have their sights on someone like WI Biadasz in next year's draft. Or as others have mentioned he could be used at guard. 3-years is a stop gap kind of contract in my mind, at least I am hopeful this is not an example of the long-term upgrades Beane is planning to make as signing an oft-injured under-performing center leaves me underwhelmed.

Yes he did, and I am pretty confident he will continue to do so.

There are times when the check down is not the answer. 3rd and long then throwing it 5 yards short of the sticks (unless you setup a great screen or a good pick on a drag route) will likely net you a slightly better place to punt from. There are things to like about a QB who can push it down the field when needed, but on those early downs if defenses are playing off your receivers, you have to be able to make them pay. Great read BTW if I did not credit the OP.

Pretty much...both my parents did shift work when I was a kid so I had to learn how to cook for myself and kid sister. The wife got better over the years...with plenty of trial and error so we share the kitchen duties now.

Having those play-makers underneath is certainly part of the equation - as many of us hope the Bills pick up a TE with great hands for just that reason. I also think in Josh's case, looking at his limited experience at the position, it is easier for him to diagnose coverage on the deeper routes as they take more time to develop. The underneath throws requires a lot more pre-snap understanding of defensive coverage and where your open options are going to be. That kind of understanding can only come with more time behind center.

The article did explain things pretty well and aligns with the voices of reason here. A few of us have noted that anticipation is more the issue on the underneath routes than simple inaccuracy; Knowing where your easy short completions are allows a QB to set and throw correctly. That seems to be born out by the fact that Josh has a decent completion percentage beyond the sticks where his anticipation and footwork can align. I think we will see him trending in the right direction next year when he starts recognizing defenses that are cheating to take away the deep hits and begins to take advantage of the low-hanging fruit. That being said, he will always be a player that if he expects single coverage and likes the match-up deep, he is going to let it rip... just needs to find the balance in his game.

This. For years we have had QB's simply incapable of pushing the ball past the sticks, so this is not a terrible problem to have. I would not lump Fitz in with this, but he did not have the arm or ability to extend plays that Allen does. I am not getting defensive as I think checking down is a muscle Allen has not exercised too much, and there is certainly some truth to that assessment that many of us have noted. NE had their corners play off our WRs betting that Allen would wait for receivers to get open beyond the sticks - basically Allen's tendencies allowed them to divest their coverage responsibilities underneath and simply pick up our receivers beyond the sticks. That is a good defensive advantage and worked well to put Allen under duress and take him out of his game. With stats you really have to have a clear idea of all the variables. Like holding the ball longer equating to less completions - do those entail avoiding a rush and being forced to find a way to extend a play as those passes would certainly be throws under duress. Also with admittedly less throws being made short of the sticks it takes fewer incompletions to drive down the percentages. A QB who checks down 15 times and has 2 drops and a miss, vs a QB who checks down 4 times and has 2 drops and a miss. Either way, I have not read the article yet and would like to see if there is anything new there that we have not already put under the microscope here on the Wall, and it is good to hear Daboll echo the observations that many of us have made dissecting Allen's play.

He struggled with offensive strategy and personnel. Just needed to hire someone who could "own" that and feel comfortable delegating that area. Maybe he struggles with that - have no idea. Wade is a bit hard on himself and never was one to sling mud around when trying to meet the expectations of some hard to please and at times meddlesome owners he has worked under.

I am pretty harsh about those things, and completely unfair when thinking about Bills draft picks. Readily admit it, so don't take it personally. I want the absolute best players the Bills can land. Game changers who also have great situational awareness. It's a high bar.

I don't. There's a cottage industry out there, friends and family, or friends at college who have some skills pulling together videos. Players often have the chance to look them over first. Unless this was a straight up product of a rabid fan. Which is possible I guess. The music comment too was funny earlier as I have talked with college coaches who laugh about how recruits sweat over having just the right tracks. He told me that he has to review so many videos that most coaches turn off the sound. It works for fans of the game - I get it. I also get that players are desperate to separate and market themselves on the field and some celebration after good plays is part of that. Not being aware that there was a fumble and starting an early celebration just bugged me because "play till the whistle" is a pop warner learned thing.

Ok then. That's your opinion. If you don't like the use of football IQ I will just say it is dumb to dance around celebrating before a play is whistled dead. Maybe even more stupid to include plays where you are doing that in your highlight video. That's my opinion.

I saw that play first and did not discount it. Love that kind of hustle. Just questioned the football IQ of someone who celebrates while the play is still live, as that happened on a few of his highlight clips.

I think folks are looking at LT and Center in FA for a few reasons: Dawkins took a step back last year and may be a better fit at guard so could be moved inside. This draft is deeper at Guard and RT than LT and Center, and the few better LTs and Centers probably should not have early round grades, but will go off the board any ways to fill needs on cap-strapped teams. Not saying they are bad players, just that they will go sooner than they should, so the Bills cannot count on them falling to them as BPA. Filling with a free agent would help to inject some veteran stability on the line, not looking for retirement age prospects, but those that have seen enough to calm the troops. For someone like this, I would expect he would have to clear medical checks and have some clauses that protect the club and the player to a degree if the same injury forces an early termination of his contract.

Miller was clearly a liability last year. Rarely have I seen an offensive linemen look so lost regarding who he should be blocking. Defenders were able to get into his body and drive him back quite often as well. His footwork was terrible, cemented to the ground and often lunging off balance - some of that was late realization of who he should pickup, some of that was just bad technique. There were obviously some questions around how the coaching was being done, maybe more tough love was needed - I dunno but Castillo was let go so there was the thought that he was not coaching these guys up very well. All that being said, an offensive line has to operate as a unit, if you do not trust or know how the guy next to you is going to block and you start trying to compensate it all goes to pieces in a hurry and everyone looks bad. Think of a guard trying to pull on a play where the center can't get anchored and is driven back 3-4 feet; the whole play becomes a train wreck. My vote would be to drop most of the under performers back to the PS, and give fresh blood (free agents and rookies we pick up in the draft) a shot at filling the holes. That gives Bobby Johnson a chance to correct technique and see who can be salvaged and who cannot. Johnson worked under some pretty successful o-line coaches, in Indy last year, and under D'Alessandris on Buffalo's Chan Gailey staff. Most remember how boring Chan was, but the Bills ran the ball extremely well under Gailey. I expect a quantum leap in the performance of this unit next year.

I think most of us can agree that it sucks to have a team in the same division as Belichick, but in a way the Bills can think of that as an advantage. Iron sharpens iron so to speak. If you wanted film to help your rookie QB see how opposing teams were attacking his tendencies or flaws in his game, I don't think there is a better, more merciless teacher out there than Belichick. Sure athletes have to have short memories and overcome failure, but those games should be gold to Ken Dorsey when looking for the best film to use to teach situational awareness, what an opposing team was willing to give up to take away something his QB normally leans on as part of his game habits, how to exploit those situations better, etc.. Sure Belichick will change things up and disguise things each time we meet up with that team, but I expect the scope of what he is able to do will become narrower each time the kid faces off with him. Teams like the Rams with Goff who rarely run across a coach on the opposing sideline who can really expose their flaws are at a severe disadvantage when it comes to stretching their skill set and it shows when they have to line up against NE. So in a sense, having rookie QBs who have not reached their ceiling yet (I feel this way about Allen and Darnold) play in the toughest division in the NFL is a good thing - the day they get past NE is the day they are probably ready to face off against any defense in the league.

Probably a bit old fashioned, but there we're a lot of clips on his highlight reel where he was busy mugging the camera "flexing nuts" while the play was still going on and the ball was still bouncing around on the turf. Bugs me a bit...play to the whistle then pat yourself on the back. Just could envision him doing something completely Billsy, like dancing around beating his chest while a Patriot player picks up the loose ball and runs it in for a score. I have a good imagination for all the things my Bills could do wrong.

To make these kinds of deals is why the Raiders formerly of Oakland exist.

That motley staff reminds me of the first dinner my wife tried to make me when we were just dating. Instant scalloped potatoes, tuna fish, water chestnuts, and marinara sauce - horrifying. I didn't even try to fake that I liked it...I gagged and scraped my tongue off with a fork like a 2 year old. Some things are never meant to be brought together.

The kid can ball, when I first looked at this class of WR's he caught my eye and I said this about Williams "Some others: Preston Williams - hard to tell what you have with that Colorado offense, but the kid good size, ran good routes, used outside, inside, and on sweeps. He gets behind defenses, catches with his hands and has pretty tough RAC."

I did not participate in this thread very much myself as I thought and still think Allen's accuracy issues were way overblown. Was he pretty raw as a QB coming in - absolutely, he was a multi-sport kid who did not really blossom into a QB till he was in JUCO. From his interviews he said he was 5-11 as a sophomore in HS and regarding speed, when playing baseball he laughed and said his Spanish teammates called him La Tortuga (The Turtle) because of how slow he was. He was not some kind of 5-star football recruit for a big D1 school so of course Allen is a project - reasonable folks when judging Allen's performance should expect to see a talented athlete and inexperienced QB with a very high ceiling who is learning how to play the QB position at an NFL level. To that end (on a steep learning curve) I looked for and saw clear progress game to game with probably close to the worst o-line and supporting cast on offense that I have seen the Bills field in years. He not only met my learning curve expectations, I had no idea he had the pocket presence he did avoiding the rush and extending plays, or could flat-out run past linebackers and safeties - bonus points. I look for Allen, his QB coach, and Daboll this year to start improving his short game. I really do not expect accuracy to be an issue, his biggest challenges will be the anticipation that precedes good footwork, so pre-snap reads of defensive alignments and knowing where to go with the ball when teams are giving up easy completions underneath. He needs to continue to work on looking off safeties, but his ability to hit the home runs will always be there. If he improves on getting the ball out quickly on shorter routes it will help cover some of the flaws of the Bills o-line as they inject new talent into it and they need some time to improve as a unit and gel. Rarely have I seen a rookie be expected to carry a team so much. To be fair to Rosen, I think he was in a similar situation Zona's o-line and offensive weapons are pretty bad too. That being said, I just don't see the level of "hope he fails" directed Rosen's way. I really did not understand the amount of derision from the talking heads like NFL's Rosenthal who's initial comments below were pretty bad. I expect some of that after a draft and they are paid to make those judgments. Then it got weird, and he stalked Allen throughout the year with plenty of comments and tweets where he seemed determined to try to prove his original negative bias and yet you heard nothing from him when there were games where Allen was clearly the best offensive player on the field and led the Bills to victory. It seemed petty and unprofessional to me. Losers Buffalo Bills: This season, the Bills used significant draft capital to trade up for quarterback Josh Allen (moving from 12th overall to seventh). The kids would call that hustling backward, especially when Allen has an uphill climb just to surpass previous Bills quarterback Tyrod Taylor's level of production. Josh Rosen has clearly displayed a more obvious NFL skill set. Allen is reminiscent of a souped-up version of another Bills first-round quarterback: J.P. Losman, a player with accuracy issues who was a star in the pre-draft season because of his measurables. Losman was taken 22nd overall in the 2004 NFL Draft and proceeded to compile a 10-23 record in Buffalo.

Not an exact science. I take a very broad view of sleeper pick, but basically someone my team picks up that I think should have gone a couple rounds earlier, or is not even mocked to go in the draft, or actually goes undrafted. Off or under the radar prospects. Best if no one picks them up and your team can grab them as an undrafted free agent. When you look at the UFAs the Bills have picked up, who have not only started, but excelled...they are doing their homework; although last year I think Daboll gave them a Bama cheat sheet.

Truth is there are also a lot of decent athletes at those smaller schools too, but you are right regarding the competition. That is why talent evaluators are looking for someone who is clearly dominant. There were not too many folks that knew there was a NDSU till Wentz came out of it. Didn't go D1 till 2007 and the Missouri Valley Football Conference is not exactly the SEC. This kid earned a NFL combine invite and that is done via a committee so someone saw enough or had the right connections to give him his day in the sun to see how his measurables stack up against the D1 prospects.

Now that was a real sleeper. You wonder how some of these kids never make it to D1 schools...academics maybe? Watched his Hudl clips (that brought back some memories), and the few Malone University clips. Considering the competition was looking for a man among boys - found one. Used all over the place and on kick returns. His combine numbers will be interesting as he covered ground in a hurry. Last time I checked the 100 yards at the Benson Hall of Fame field was the same distance as Alabama's. The Bills have some good history with small school prospects.

Another good option, which I think is the book on receivers this year. Maybe not an A. J. Green in the mix, but more than a few that could turn into solid NFL starters. A football program being shut down in Canton Ohio, that is so wrong. Don't know how many game clips this kid will have, but will have to look him up....now I am curious.