FireChans

There’s two camps here Thesis: I’m not sure if Allen works hard or not during the off-season Evidence: No unofficial WR minicamp videos No workout videos Talks about focusing on healing and time off instead of conditioning in the off-season Has not improved as a QB since 2020 Thesis: Allen definitely works hard in the off-season Evidence: I hope he does Do you think the other great QB’s believe this? The ones with multiple titles?

clearly I can’t count.

The savvy move would’ve been trading the pick that was gonna be James Cook for Aiyuk 2 years ago when he was in Shanny’s doghouse and rumored to be firmly on the block. But then, you would have had to know that WR was a crippling need 2 off seasons ago.

I agree that we lack top end players and we have a stable of solid to good guys. I guess where I disagree is when you list EIGHT players (and including OL that’s probably closer to at least 10) that are above average and compare it to the rest of the league, that number is not really high either. It may be more than a couple of the bottom feeder teams. Lets compare it to the Bears, who of course, picked #1 last year because they were awful, and are picking top 10 this year. Above average players, relative to position: Keenan Allen DJ Moore Montez Sweat Swift Edmunds Jaylon Johnson Cole Kmet Brisker/Byard? TJ Edwards And that’s not including OL, which admittedly I didn’t watch much of the Bears OL to have opinion. They are picking NINTH. They are currently a bottom 10 team. A year after picking FIRST. Being the worst team in football!

Do you really think the Bills have better talent than the Jets? The Jets are clearly all in this season, and absolutely rolling the dice on big name guys that have major health concerns. But if they can stay healthy…. (Huge if) they may have the best talent in the AFCE, arguably.

That’s fair, imo this is probably the most important draft of Beane’s career. when you look at our contemporaries (perennial postseason teams), I think we are firmly at the bottom of that list. And when you consider the cap situation we find ourselves in, it’s tough to realize we have no money, no high draft picks, and are near the bottom in talent under contract. It just sucks.

Including QB or not? I think 12 is far too high.

What do you have the Bills talent range in 2024?

This take shut down the board for 2 hours.

Disagree with this quite a bit. I think they were pretty close, even if you give the edge to 2023. Of course, now we ditched Morse (who has been our second best OL man for this era) so I have no reason to believe that the 2024 OL is going to be better than 2020 or 2023. I stand by the 2020 team was overall our most talented. We had a top 3-5 WR, a deep receiving stable, a good OL, good LB’s, great DB’s. What units are good or great today? Not DL. Not DB. Not WR, missing both top end talent and quality depth. Units I think were at least pretty good in 2020 relative the the rest of the NFL. QB WR OL LB CB S units I think are at least pretty good in 2024 relative to the rest of the NFL: QB RB TE OL LB That may have been good in 1980, but in a passing league, I prefer DB’s and WR’s to be superstars over RB’s and LB’s.

We aren’t going to miss them that much, because they are diminished players. But we are going to miss the players they used to be quite a lot.

I forgot because it was a midnight post. Even adding in TE’s 2020 clears by a mile. The Mario Williams deal WAS a homerun. Jesus

????? Diggs, Beasley, Brown, Davis, Singletary. Shakir, Samuel, Hollins, Cook. ??????????????

No team has every drafted a QB at #7 overall and won a Superbowl (since at least 1980). Is it time to trade Josh Allen for picks and rebuild? Clearly, because it's never happened, it means it can't happen.

Most WR’s drafted in any round don’t have a ring. This is not a solid argument.

To be fair, Josh was an absolute moron that game and deserved to be called out after that.

Lots of disagrees with this post, but I guess folks are afraid to answer my questions.

Yes. I wanted to do it pre-trading Diggs. Even moreso now.

Everytime I read this post, I wonder why Trubisky is making $2.71M in guarantees. Bizarre ***** outta the Bills This is just not true. It's a myth. It worked out once for the Pats in Jimmy G. Everyone else they took a loss on.

I think it's mostly Josh Allen/McD. Then again, I think Josh Allen is clear and away the second best QB in the league, and McD a top 10 coach in the regular season, at least. That's a recipe for a lot of wins, regardless of the teams' overall talent level. We just have to look at the other great coach/great QB combos. Reid/Mahomes. BB/Brady. Their teams always fluctuate in talent, that's the NFL. They usually still win a lot. Where do you rank the 2024 Bills in regards to talent level in the NFL? Where do you rank the 2020 Bills? I think the 2024 Bills currently (pre-draft) have probably their worst roster since 2018. Do you disagree? I think the 2020 had the best roster of the Beane/McD era. Do you disagree? How many years do you think it will take to get the Bills to a 2020 team level of talent again? 1? 2? 3? At what point do you watch the GM take total zeros like Elam, Boogie Basham and Cody Ford, overdraft JAGS like Epenesa and Rousseau, take the 4th best DL player in the first round at pick #9, refuse to draft a WR before the 4th round for 4 seasons, all while watching the overall talent of the team circle the drain before you blame him for it?

DJ is $10M on the books for the Panthers. He was traded to Carolina (CAR) from Pittsburgh (PIT) with 2024 7th round pick (#240) for Donte Jackson and 2024 6th round pick (#178). Now, Donte may have had some value for the Stillers but he was likely going to be cut in Carolina, and he signed a restructured $6M deal with them after the trade, so he didn't have a TON of value. So maybe without Jackson to dangle, could we have gotten him for a 4th or a 5th and 6th? In hindsight, is that a move you wished we pulled the trigger on, knowing what we know about Diggs now?

Are we very good? And did Beane really do much? Who are the biggest contributors at the biggest position over the last 5 years? And how many of them were Pre-Beane? Pre-Beane: Tre Dawkins Milano Hyde Poyer Post-Beane: Allen Edmunds Taron Johnson Diggs Oliver Davis Rousseau ? Cook? Bernard? Kincaid? Torrence? That list is kind of sobering. The Beane "stars" from 2018 to current day ain't really stars, outside of Allen and Diggs, maybe Oliver. We feel exactly how we are supposed to about our team. We are a team whose best players were all acquired 4-7 years ago, and most of their careers have either faded or ended. 4 years ago, we had 3 All-Pro/ProBowlers in the secondary, and Taron Johnson was probably our 4th best DB. Today, he's our second best DB, narrowly beating out a 6th round pick out of Villanova. 4 years ago, Gabe Davis was our fourth best WR. Last year, he was our second best. And today, Shakir is our best WR by default. 3 years ago, our best EDGE player was probably Rousseau. Today, it's still Rousseau, by default. Now a lot of our best players got old. That's not Beane's fault. But he is tasked with maintaining a talent pipeline to offset those losses. And he has failed, imo.

the Bills are the second best team in football because McD is a good coach and Josh is the second best QB in football. Beane deserves massive credit for hitting Josh Allen and massive criticism for most of his other moves. Do you disagree with that?

100% This is what folks don’t get when they evaluate off-season of teams. A bad off-season may not seem so bad to start. But it can compound and be felt even worse 2-3 years down the road. Just like the Chiefs passing on Higgins for CEH. It was called by many as a bad move at the time, by others it was a luxury pick they could afford. 3 years later, Mahomes is posting his worst statistical season throwing to trash cans. You can trace all this stuff back. Building (or failing to build) and your strategy to do so matters so much more than folks give it credit for. We have a useless, depleted DL now because our process building out the DL 2 years ago failed. We have a depleted WR group now, because we didn’t even try to build that room two years ago besides extending Diggs. It always comes back. You can mess up here and there but sometimes teams don’t survive disaster on disaster in a zero sum league.

Tua posted videos throwing to Berrios and Waddle last off-season.