Billl

Pioli loves himself some Pioli. Amazing how smart he wasn’t as soon as he left New England.

That’d be an amazing draft, but I’d be shocked of any of your first 3 picks are actually available in those slots. If they are, I hope the Chiefs jump you 3 times.

He’s got Rolando McClain written all over him.

1,100 yards of offense in 12 games as a rookie. Was pacing for around 1,000 rushing and 500 receiving before the injury. Beane should have been so lucky as to hit on a JAG in the past 2 seasons.

TE is such a weird position. Gronk, Kelce, and Kittle were all day 3 picks. For whatever reason, it’s a really hard position to project. For a TE to be worth a top 10 pick, he’d have to be a top 5 guy in the league at minimum. I think he will, but there isn’t anything remotely resembling a guarantee of that.

He’s absolutely worth it, but Beane would be talking to a dial tone as soon as he offered it. Even throwing in next year’s first wouldn’t get it done. It’s a bigger move than KC made to get Buffalo’s 10th pick. No GM would ever take Edmunds over a third rounder and next year’s first. Edmunds might be worth a third to the right team, so that leaves a lot of work left to be done.

Didn’t that JAG run for close to 2 hundy in Buffalo?

That makes sense, but there are only so many roster spots available. Beane has done a really good job of assembling a roster that could line up and play today. If there has ever been a time when you would be better off sacrificing quantity for quality by trading up for one or two prized targets, this would be it.

Why would you want to trade down? It’s hard enough to find an impact player at 30. Why dilute the talent pool further before your first pick?

He sounds pretty similar to Epenesa in that regard. Is there a need for another similar type player?

Same. This year, it’s Quinn Meinerz. Both of those guys just made it look unfair. Whenever I see a guy like that, I’m all in. There’s always a chance it’s the Kimbo Slice effect and they’re just beating up on inferior competition, but either way I’m here for it.

If Beane stays at 30, there’s a really good chance a WR is BPA. There just aren’t many big time pass rushing options available. Given that it’s easily the biggest need for a team whose window is wide open, I think the play is to move up for someone like Paye or one of the Miami edges. Then again, I’ll never fault someone for grabbing another weapon in today’s NFL so if he thinks there’s a game breaker at WR then go get him.

He is, but I wouldn’t consider anything he’s done so far this off-season especially noteworthy. Swapping out Brown for Sanders is probably the biggest roster move, but I’d still consider that tinkering. He has done a good job of re-signing players to team friendly contracts, and signing Brenda was a low key good move. Given his track record I would have expected Beane to have been a bit more aggressive. I guess it wouldn’t shock me to see him move up in the draft for a pass rusher. I think that’s the team’s biggest need by far, and I don’t see an obvious target in the late first round this year.

Should’ve snatched up Sammy Watkins before the Ravens nabbed him.

That’s a good point. McBeane has moved the franchise to a different level than where it was for decades. The conversation has evolved from trying to figure out how to get good players to figuring out who you’re going to let walk because there’s quality at every position. These are boujee problems that only a handful of teams have to concern themselves with, but they’re still very real. In 2018, Kansas City was the number 1 seed in the AFC and was basically a lost coin flip in overtime away from a Super Bowl. Veach gutted the defense, and they won a championship the following year with 8 new defensive starters. A year after losing in the Super Bowl, they’re going to have 6 or 7 new starters on offense. That’s not because the team had 8 bad players on defense 3 seasons ago or 7 bad players on offense last year. The front office looked at the product as a whole and decided that they weren’t going to win a championship with the same 22 players that lost in Tampa. I look at the Bills the same way. Last year’s team was really good, but I didn’t come away from the AFCCG thinking those 2 teams were evenly matched. I felt the same way after watching Tampa undress the Chiefs. To my eye, Veach is making moves like a guy who is pissed about losing the Super Bowl whereas Beane is mostly tinkering.

You’re so close to getting the point. I’m not criticizing Milano at all. If Kelce can’t be handled even by the best coverage LBs, then why pay big salaries for coverage LBs? Tampa won by blowing up the line every play with their elite pass rushers up front allowing them to play that Cover 2 shell. White makes $7,000,000 a year. Milano is getting 40% more than that. Using your own logic, he’s getting that money to cover average TEs while elite TEs run wild. Wouldn’t it make more sense to use that money on an elite pass rush? There is a pretty strong trend of teams with elite TEs making the Super Bowl. The last 3 seasons have had Gronk, Gronk, Kelce, Kelce, and Kittle playing. You don’t beat those teams with coverage LBs trying to hang with them for 4 seconds. You either need shutdown CBs who allow for bracket coverage or with a pass rush that can get home without blitzing allowing your defense to play that shell. The first time Buffalo played Kansas City they tried to sit back in a shell, and the Chiefs ran all over them because their front 4 couldn’t hold up. The second game saw a different strategy, but Kelce and Hill did whatever they wanted. As I said before, I don’t see how increasing Milano’s salary by a factor of 20 changes that equation. An elite coverage LB is a great asset against average TEs. An elite pass rush is a great asset against everyone. An $11,000,000 coverage LB strikes me more as a luxury item for a team that already has the pass rush figured out.

Fred Warner, Bobby Wagner, and Devin White are elite coverage LBs. Welcome back to my point. If you aren’t one of those guys and you aren’t a pass rusher, then I’m not paying big bucks for your services. I’ll save the money and put it towards an edge who can force the ball out of the QBs hands, thus taking pressure off the coverage or I’ll spend on a CB who can play on an island freeing up a safety to bracket the TE. I just don’t see enough difference between a JAG LB and a pretty good LB to matter. I can hide a Reggie Ragland if it frees up $10,000,000 to put towards a star at an impact position who acts as a force multiplier for the entire unit. I don’t understand how paying the guy who got rinsed for 3 hours in the AFCCG a 2000% salary increase closes the gap. Not saying it’s a bad decision. I simply used MM as an example of where Beane might have decided to de-emphasize one position in order to land a star elsewhere. Adequate LBs can be had in the middle of the draft. Beane has drafted RBs in the third round two years in a row and may well spend a first rounder on another this year. Would you rather have Matt Milano and Zack Moss or $10,000,000 of cap space, Malik Harrison, and a comp pick? I don’t think you’re dumb if you pick the first option, but I definitely disagree.

If Milano were capable of erasing elite TEs, they wouldn’t play zone against a team like Kansas City. McDermott threw the kitchen sink at Kelce and couldn’t even slow him down. Hell, he even had White covering him for a while and it didn’t make a bit of difference. They were getting creative, but nothing worked. If Milano had been effectively covering Kelce, I don’t think McDermott would have stubbornly refused to play him straight up. That’s what prompts the question. How much do you pay a LB who doesn’t get after the QB and who can’t check top tier TEs? If it’s me, the answer is not very much. I’d rather save that money and apply it towards an elite pass rusher, CB, etc. Those types can make crappy LBs look serviceable.

This is a key point, IMO. Beane has built an exceptionally balanced roster. There are very few liabilities to be found. The flip side is that there are very few elite players. Allen and Diggs are elite. White was trending towards that level, but I don’t think he was last year at all. Beyond that, it’s a roster full of solid players who aren’t necessarily difference makers. The roster is built to consistently beat up on average to good teams, but they don’t seem to have many guys who can simply take over a game. I’m curious to see if Beane ever shifts his philosophy and decides to let a guy like Milano walk in order to throw big money at a star and banking on his stars to more than make up for the resulting holes. Doing that successfully requires a GM to hit on players in the draft who can excel while they are young and cost controlled. Kansas City is all in on this strategy. They’ve taken swings on star players, but the roster has several gaping holes that could potentially sink them. They’ve given massive contracts to guys like Hill, Kelce, Mahomes, Chris Jones, and Mathieu. It’s left them without viable options at LT, WR2, DE, and LB, though. Getting very little out of draft picks in 2018 and 2019 contributed greatly to these holes being exposed. The 2020 draft was a home run, but it’s going to take another one in 2021 to avoid taking the field with some very exploitable weaknesses. I see Milano as the exact type of player to sacrifice in order to go big game hunting. He provided solid value for a cheap draft pick and the rookie deal that came with it. I’d have encouraged Beane to wish him well and go find another one in the draft or on the waiver wire. There’s simply a limit to the value of a LB who isn’t an elite pass rusher and who isn’t going to neutralize elite TEs. Not saying it was a mistake to sign him, just that it may have been a good spot to roll the dice and going with a cheaper replacement. He’s saying the literal opposite. An elite coverage LB would have been on Kelce all game. Why pay big money to a LB who doesn’t sack the QB and who can’t take away elite TEs?

I don’t think we’re that far apart in our assessments. The main difference between us seems to be that you think the Bills WRs are better than I do and that the Kansas City CBs are worse than I do. You also seem to think more highly of the KC pass rushers than I do. After watching both of those games about 20 times each, my takeaway is that the Chiefs secondary matched up very well against the Bills WRs and TEs. Spagnuolo was comfortable enough with his secondary to blitz over and over without fear of being burned. Kansas City failed to generate consistent pressure without blitzing all year long. This wasn’t a secret, and Daboll isn’t an idiot. Buffalo’s WRs simply couldn’t win against this supposedly weak secondary...for the second time in two games...until Sneed went out. If I’m a Bills fan (and I am when they’re not playing the Chiefs), I’m pounding the table for speed at the skill positions. As much as I respect what Beane has done, I sometimes wonder if a sprinter screwed his wife. He seems to hate speed at skill positions. Diggs is plenty fast but not a burner. Beyond that, he’s brought in Beasley, Sanders, Singletary, Moss, and Hodgins. They’re all talented guys, but they aren’t winning any relay races. Add in Knox at the TE position, and I see one true weapon surrounded by a pretty mediocre cast. I just don’t see that collection of skill players going into Arrowhead and putting up 5 TDs unless Josh goes full on Superman (which is always a possibility).

So your contention is that the Chiefs blew out the Bills because the refs and injured WRs? What about the first game where the Chiefs were called for twice as many penalties and twice as many yards as Buffalo yet held them to 122 yards passing? I said that Diggs is elite and the rest of the receiving corps is a bunch of JAGs. Beasley is a solid possession receiver who just had a career year. He deserves better than being called JAG, but the context of the conversation was whether Buffalo should draft a WR, and I was responding to someone saying that no rookie could make the roster. If Beasley and Sanders were 22 and 24 instead of 32 and 34, he may have had a point. The idea that those two players should factor into the team’s long term strategy is laughable. Whether you think the Chiefs are great or not, the road to the Super Bowl has gone through Kansas City 3 years in a row, and they’re the odds on favorite in Vegas next year as well. Maybe I’m just blind, but I think it’s odd that Bills fans can watch the 2 games they played last year and come away thinking that Buffalo is set at WR and KC is weak at CB. Tampa Bay destroyed the Kansas City offensive line in the Super Bowl. Kansas City has responded by literally replacing all 5 starters on the o-line. Buffalo threw for 400 yards combined in 2 games against Kansas City, swapped out Sanders for Brown, and posters literally don’t think there’s room on the roster for a rookie WR in a historically loaded draft.

Were the receivers all hurt in October when Allen threw for 122 yards? Was it the pass rush when Josh didn’t get sacked a single time? Sneed locked Diggs down in the playoffs. He got concussed, and Diggs literally caught passes on the next 2 plays. Sneed got hurt on the last drive of the 4th quarter. When he went out, Diggs had 12 yards receiving in 42:13 of game time. After Sneed left, he had 4 catches for 65 yards in the final 17:47. The pass rush didn’t change. The guy covering him did.

Nah man. The Bills are so loaded at WR that no rookie could possibly make the team, but the Chiefs and their terrible corners somehow managed to shut down those WRs twice because the refs let them cheat.

The reason you gave for them moving him is demonstrably false. His coach has said as much. He was drafted to play CB because of his 2018 tape. The GM who drafted him has said as much.

Did you watch the Bills play the Chiefs? Allen managed 122 yards passing in the first game and had nothing in the second game until garbage time (after Sneed left with a concussion, incidentally). Ward is a very solid #2. He’s fantastic in coverage, but he’s simply not athletic enough to go against #1 WRs. They simply big brother him when battling for the ball, but most #2 receivers can’t do that to him. Fenton is solid in the slot (had a pick in the AFCCG), and D’Andre Baker is solid depth. Without Breeland, they’re still a little thin at CB, but that’s mitigated with an elite safety pairing of Matthieu and Thornhill. KC’s secondary is top 5 in the NFL. Their defensive weaknesses are at LB and DE. The team routinely played base Nickel because of how little they had at the LB position. Frank Clark was JAG last year, and he was the best DE on the team. Neither position has been addressed in FA so far, though the Reed signing will allow Chris Jones to rotate at DE more. That’s still papering over a weakness, but it’s easily superior to what they had last year. I fully expect the Kansas City defense to be a top 10 unit next season, and that’s with teams racking up stats by playing catch up similar to the AFCCG. That’s just false. He was excellent at Corner his Junior season. They moved him to S because they had Amik Robertson at the position who was also drafted but is only 5’6. They had a need at Safety and one of the most athletic DBs in the country available to plug into the spot.