whorlnut

Oh I absolutely think we need to improve the talent on the line.

Exactly. I said all off-season we would be in trouble if something happened to Diggs or Davis. That was assuming Davis would prove himself as a true 2 in the first place. He hasn’t. He’s a very good 4 or 5 and there is nothing wrong with that. But that’s what’s bizarre. Beane and McD preach “competition” but pretty much handed the job to Davis. That has turned into a big mistake. We need at least one stud WR this off-season to compete and probably take over after next season. Our WRs have time to get open. They just dont run good routes except for Diggs. This is the issue with this thread…too many of you fail to acknowledge the deficiencies in our overall talent at WR. It’s like you choose to be blind to it.

Why they continue to use McKenzie is beyond me. A “shot” Beasley is still better than a healthy McKenzie. What’s your point?

Well said. The bottom line is we didn’t do enough on offense this past offseason. I honestly think the plan was to bolster the defense (McD) and hope Allen could elevate everyone on the offense. Well…that’s proven to be a huge mistake. Our line isn’t very good and outside of Diggs, we can use upgrades everywhere. Davis is a solid 3 or 4, but he isn’t a 2. That experiment has backfired. The resigning of McKenzie pissed me off at the time it happened and it still does. Saffold to a one year deal and then don’t bring in a rookie to learn and take over last year? Not good enough.

Beane is the best GM in the game, but hasn’t done a great job of allotting resources evenly to both sides of the ball. One of my main criticisms last off-season was that we didn’t do enough to strengthen our strength, which is passing the ball. We lost sanders and Beasley and replaced them with McKenzie (hated that extension), crowder, Howard, and Shakir. He signed 4 offensive players to one year deals, while giving several of the defensive players multi year deals. I have been banging the table to keep adding weapons. Beane and McD talk about competition, but didn’t challenge Davis going into camp. He was basically handed the number 2 role, which he hasn’t exactly earned this season. I think he’s a really good 4, but he leaves you wanting more as a 2. Shakir seems to have a good future, but it makes no sense why McKenzie is getting as many snaps as he is. Thinking crowder would stay healthy was wishful thinking. Saffold is on a one year deal and I wanted the bills to draft a guard high to learn and take over next year. Now we have a hole to fill because they did nothing else on the line.

I wouldn’t call him a “great number 2” by any stretch of the imagination. If anything, he’s disappointed this season by not being the consistent threat we were hoping he’d become.

It’s absolutely mental.

Yep. I can’t understand how McKenzie keeps hanging on with this team.

I think it has a lot to do with them hoping McKenzie could be beasley’s replacement. He’s nowhere near that level. Not even close. It was a bad miscalculation on Beane’s behalf. The really frustrating thing is the lack of usage for Shakir. He Is a bigger guy, he’s fast, way more physical. He’s been in the system for a while now…give him more burn. He’s the unknown, while we all know what we have in McKenzie at this point.

I think a lot of fans bought into the elite roster talk this off-season and ignored the fact that we lacked a lot on offense. I was never impressed with extending McKenzie, signing Johnson, crowder, Howard, and Saffold to one year deals. All the while signing multiple defensive players to multi year deals and drafting a corner in 1. I mean, what does Allen have to do to get some help?

Beane needs to focus on offense this off-season. He needs to lock McD in a padded room and not allow him to be in his ear that he needs more defense.

A “very good 2”? Come on man…that’s a bit of a stretch, but whatever.

I wanted a WR or OL early. Didn’t want a corner in the first. McD has a good track record with developing DBs and thought we could wait til later. Turns out that the WRs were picked through and there weren’t any OL available in round one either. I was then hoping for a trade down to pick up more picks.

McKenzie is a decent gadget guy, that’s it. He’s not a good slot.

I agree. I can’t for the life of me figure out how McKenzie continues to get opportunities with this team. I hated the off-season extension because I thought there was an obvious need to upgrade. I think Beane and McD need to stop with this “great locker room guy” BS and start getting better players for the offense. We have the leaders in the locker room that can handle a more volatile personality.

Nobody is giving up on him. Good grief. Some of us just see him as more of a 4 than a 2. He hasn’t stepped up his current role. He was REALLY good as a 4, though.

I totally agree with all this. We hedged our bets that Davis would take a huge step and he hasn’t been consistent enough to feel he can be our 2. McKenzie is awful. They didn’t do enough to surround Allen this off-season. They need an offense heavy off-season to balance out this roster.

I agree. I think Shakir is our future at slot and I’m good with that. He’s way more physical and gets YAC. He catches contested balls too. It’s really tough to see McKenzie out there and Shakir riding pine. I also think we need to take a WR high in the draft this year. I can’t imagine that they’ve seen enough from Davis to think he’s the undisputed 2 and I highly doubt they pay him after next year. Time to hedge bets and bring in competition and have a solid 2 waiting in the wings. Imo, Davis is a great 4, and an average 2.

Totally agree. Davis hasn’t really stepped up the way we all hoped he would. He’s been decent at times and other times he’s been pretty bad. We still need to upgrade at WR. Agree with this. Likable guy but not a good football player. I think too many fans give him a pass because he is so likable and has a catchy nickname. The production just isn’t there…

Do they? I’m not so sure with McD. He seems to continually find ways to let teams back in games. We just don’t put teams away and it bites us a lot of times. I’ve seen way too many games where Allen was lights out in the first half and then we come out flat and conservative in the second half. You’re right though…he lost a lot of my faith in that 13 second debacle. I’ve never lost faith in Allen. Never. I was supporting him his rookie year when most (maybe even you) were crucifying him mercilessly. McD is a different story. I lost a lot of faith in him after 13 seconds. It was a nightmare and couldn’t have been botched worse. That’s on him and I’ve been super critical of him.

Instant gratification? This is year 6 for McD and year 5 for Allen. Instant gratification went bye bye 3 or 4 years ago…

Tupac “Shakur”? Or Khalil “Shakir”. Please clear the air…

Always hated these arguments. There is NO reason to think the same thing would have happened if he was here.

So your solution is to continue to invest heavily in dline and hoping we “get it right”. In the meantime, what do we do about the offensive line and WR corp?

Agree. To me this is a similar situation that happened with Derrick rose in the nba. He was elite and an mvp and then he hurt his knee. Got cleared and still sat out. He was never the same player. I think we might need to get used to that possibly being the reality with white.