Einstein's Dog

The OP subject thread is headlined with "I'm starting to love the WR room. We quietly got better". The topic is WR room.

They're all Divas. Hard to really like any of them. St Brown is the closest you can get to for anyone to root for. It seems WRs as a group have lost the common decency of keeping their selfish thoughts to themselves. As it pertains to the Bills, I can see getting one of these top tier WRs as a problem to the spreading out of the ball philosophy. D Adams couldn't keep his mouth shut and complained about targets during a win.

I don't think the Claypool problem comes from Hollis, IMO, Hollis should be easy to overtake. The problem I can see is with K Coleman getting reps over Claypool when Claypool is outplaying Coleman. But the FO wants Coleman in there instead. The lineup/reps would be going to Shakir/C Samuel/and K Coleman. Coleman is the first pick in the draft and the FO is going to want to get him experience even if it comes at the expense of Claypool. That can be tough to take. And Claypool doesn't have a history of handling situations well.

I think Digg's problem with the coaching staff was not McDermott but J Brady. The taking himself out on key 3rd downs when he wasn't injured is unacceptable. I think it was a Diggs or J Brady situation and the FO/team chose J Brady.

You're doing one thing to one element of the data set and then not doing the same thing to the others. A lot of teams have games where their run game is working and they don't rely on the pass, yet you keep those games in for them. What you are doing is not providing an accurate picture.

If you're taking out Josh's worst statistical game you should take out the others worst game. And since you are using just a half year for Josh and extrapolating it, you would need to take out the 2 worst games for the others. You're trying to play games with the numbers to make it look better.

I was at the same point, thru episode 2 and had the same thoughts. After episode 3 and starting episode 4 the enthusiasm has gone down dramatically. D Adams would want targets, that championship angle really waned when times got tough.. Not the type of distributing to the open man guy. I'd much rather have Metcalf now (although I know he's not available now). Would like DHop over the two (Adams + Aiyuk) too.

Adams would want a new deal, and the acquiring team would want to give him a new deal - Adams is scheduled to make $35M the next two years. That is the motivation for the Raiders to move him. They never intended to pay him his inflated 2025 salary. D Adams would be amenable to being traded because his new deal would get more upfront guaranteed money. And the Bills should be a great candidate because we have no WR1 and Josh Allen as the QB.- Great spot for him on his quest for the HOF.

Could depend on the contract and how much the Raiders take in. We have 2 second round picks, maybe give up ours. Getting Adams for 2-3 years at the $20M range might be easier for the FO to take.

My error. It's not his contract but his cap hit that makes the Raiders want to move him. D Adams is scheduled for $35M base next year, I doubt that's in anyone's plans.

The Raiders would move Adams to get draft capital. They realize their QB situation is dreadful. D Adams will be a FA at the end of the year so if they don't trade him now they get nothing for him. IMO the Bills make more sense than the Jets. The Jets already have M Williams and G Wilson. Plus the Jets are going to be paying the price for A Rodgers big contract in the future. The Bills have 2 seconds, if they float one of them out there it should be enough to get it done.

The problem with Aiyuk is he has established himself as a whiner. Showing that me-first attitude that is hard to deal with. And Aiyuk wants top dollar. Although in this instance I guess a lot of it could be put off into the future. I agree with the sentiment, just getting a top tier WR changes the whole complexion/makeup of the WR room. The odds of it happening this season seem low but one of Aiyuk/Adams/Metcalf/Dhop would really help.

I'm with you on hoping the Bills can maintain a pass centric offense that uses Josh's strengths. But this year the choice of where the limited resources went signals trouble- at least as far as the WR room is concerned. It's starting to look like a choice was made when the FO opted to take J Brady as OC. This is looking now like it was a Diggs or Brady choice. Prior to the end of the season I thought Diggs was hurt and Brady was adapting the offense to the personnel. Now it's starting to look like this is the offense Brady wants to run (with McD/Beane blessings). Of course this can work, but stylistically I envy the path of some of the other franchises. Callahan in Tenn brought in Ridley and Boyd when he already had DHop and Burks - nice. True they don't have a franchise QB, but then Philly paid all of Hurts/AJ Brown and D Smith. SF is going to have to pay Purdy and has Deebo and Aiyuk and drafted WRs in the first and 4th.

No, I hope not. I don't like the idea that the FO doesn't prioritize offensive weaponry for Josh. Having one top tier WR on your team is the average. And at one point when we had Diggs/Brown/Beasley we were cooking. But I think when we lost DaBoll the Bills lost a strong voice for offense and the overall plan for weaponry for Josh has suffered. IMO, you reach a false positive conclusion by only looking at additions and not taking into account the subtractions. To highlight this, by your account this year showed a high priority because they invested their first pick. When in reality, we all know this has been a huge step backwards.

Samuel cost $8M, that's less than G Davis and Samuel is the most expensive WR for the Bills this year. Hard not to think that investing in WR is a low priority. Seems you have me confused with someone else, I was not begging for Franklin, quite the opposite. I thought at the time if the FO didn't double dip they had plans to trade for a WR when the Tre money became available. I didn't think a great GM would go into the season with their best WR being C Samuel (and at the time I thought Beane was a great GM), especially in the midst of Josh's prime. So yeah, it's been a rough off-season for me (and some others here). I've never rooted for the Bills to lose but now I have to wonder what kind of record would it take for Pegula to pull the plug on Beane/McD and get someone in here who make it a priority to surround Josh with weapons.

For me the frustration is in the realization that the FO has the WR group as a low priority. Baldo and Gunner have previously said it, but I didn't believe it. Only the diehards like the OP, can rearrange what is staring us all in the face and paint a rosy picture with it. For the group of Bills fans that would like to have Josh slinging the ball to excellent WRs, this does not seem to be the year for them. And then there is the uncertainty of what happens if the Bills have a good season with using pathetic WRs? Does it continue?

I seem to like K Coleman more than you. one thing that may have had appeal for K Coleman was his attitude and interview. He will be a fit in the new young culture they're bringing in. The disconnect I have with the FO on this move is, for a young, developing player with special gifts you take him at the end of the first. The small move down into the second would seem to be for someone with a lower ceiling who was more pro-ready for immediate benefits - a McConkey type.

It comes down to a matter of prioritization. And I have finally come over to the group on here (Gunner/Baldo/Happy) that have suggested for much longer that WR is not high enough on the FO list (although Gunner gives McD slack for this prioritization miscue somehow). In retrospect I now think they should have made a move at the end of the third for T Franklin, seemed like great value to me (but at the time I was rooting against it because it would have meant they weren't going to do a large trade for a top tier WR- I still had high hopes). The FO would have had to figure the rest out, but I think they could still have picked up who they wanted - they did end up with an extra 4th next year out of what they did.

I think a lot of it is because the OP specifically mentions WRs. And for most of us, it is a huge stretch to love this WR group or think it got better. Secondly, we finally have an excellent TE group - probably the best the Bills have ever had, and J Cook is improving rapidly and that is after a pretty good season, along with Shakir improving. All this offense needed to be among the top, was a top tier WR. Apparently that is not going to happen. And if the FO knew that a top tier WR wasn't in the cards then double dipping in the deep WR draft would seem to have been the way to go. That would have been an exciting rebuild with a bright offensive future. So a lot of people are upset, not so much about what we have, but for what could have been.

While Diggs may have had to go, it seemed to highlight a failure to prepare. The strategy of going thin in the WR room has caught up with the Bills. From Elam over Watkins/Pickens to not picking up what looks to be a great value in DHop - there doesn't seem to have been much of a backup plan. Like you said they knew Diggs' history and yet they didn't put anything in the pipeline. Even after they knew they were in a rebuild they didn't pick up 2 WRs in the deep WR draft. I don't get that. It would be a lot more exciting to me if the Bills had picked up T Franklin at the end of the third to go with K Coleman. As it stands now it looks like WR is a glaring need for next year.

K Cousins? That would have required big time cash, $50M signing bonus, $100M guaranteed. Miami wants a decent QB on a budget, that is not Cousins. I don't know what "holding in" means. Even if Tua didn't have his injury history, playing at less than half your market value doesn't seem like a smart move.

That could be me. I was in the Denial stage, expecting a trade. Now I'm in the Anger stage. Hope I can get to the Acceptance stage by the start of the season. I remember last year people on this board wanting us to lose when we were teetering on the edge. I thought that was weird. Now if I can't snap out of it, I could see myself getting weird too.

While Diggs departure may have been somewhat unexpected, the FO seems to have been caught completely off-guard. Some responsibility comes from the past neglect (Elam over C Watkins or Pickens for example). And as you mention the post moves have been just so weak - no big FA, no double dip, and no trade. I think I have moved into the Anger portion of the grief stage. I don't like the lack of weapons and now blame the entire FO Beane/McD/Brady team. We see SF doing a double dip when they have Deebo/Aiyuk/McCaffery and Kittle. Watching an offensive minded coach at Tenn who has DHop and Burk add in C Ridley and Boyd. I want that kind of thought process here and see Josh cook.

I hear ya. I'm trying to view it from my optimistic Bills perspective. This could be a real mess and I couldn't be happier. And unfortunately I've heard this Tua is a good guy thing too. And that is why I want him to have the aggressive agent. And I want Tua to hold a grudge. Otherwise I think he would have been reasonable.

You seem to be viewing it from a Dolphins GM perspective. And I agree from that perspective you would want another year and an out. But now view it from Tua's agents perspective - you don't want him to have to go out another year at an under-market rate. You don't let him play at $24M for the year when he could hold out and get the market rate of $50M/yr + guaranteed money the next time he plays. Someone will pay it, look at the Trevor/K Cousins/D Jones contracts. So when you say "Squeeze all you want, but if I’m the Dolphins I’m protecting the team by structuring the contract in a way that allows them outs" then they won't be accepting the contract because Tua's agent will be putting huge guarantees in it. Personally I'm glad to see it. When they brought Tua back out at that Bills game, I said they'll pay for this. And they have, karma is a b*tch. Not only the Cincy game, but that whole season. Now as the gift that keeps on giving, Tua can guilt-free hold them over a barrel. He owes them nothing, outwardly say this is just business (and quietly, internally, smile).