Beck Water

"Barefoot in Buffalo" sounds like the name of a RomCom flick Seriously, in the days when everyone went barefoot, the winter sidewalks weren't covered with snow melting compound. My dog could care less about running around in snow. Somehow the blood flow in her pads adjust. But snow melting compound is Evil. It leads to puddles of liquid that are below freezing and can damage her paws, and the chemicals themselves can dry the skin and cause cracking. We either don't walk her, or put booties on her, before she walks anywhere that might have had snow melt applied to it. And when we don't think there's snow melt to worry about, we apply Musher's Secret to partially protect. Snowmelt is Bad, Mack, Don't Do It.

? Are you talking about the pass that got fumbled in the Steelers game and Kincaid batted it out of bounds? Or the deep bomb he should have had? 'Cuz I didn't see a reaction that made it seem like he thought it was off.

When did he do that? He said he wishes he had it back, 100% accountable.

That may be, but they "kicked some can down the road" in Dec of 22 after he was already injured, by converting some 2022 salary to signing bonus. But I agree, they could have done more and refrained, likely from concern about his ACL recovery. Show me a time when the Patriots or Chiefs moved on from a player who cost them massive dead cap, more dead cap to move on than to keep him.

I want a week in Costa Rica. And a pony.

Except, he did fall off a bit last season, specifically the 2nd half of last season. I don't think it necessarily means he fell off a "performance cliff" or something, I think he may have had some painful and nagging injury like an oblique or something which slowed him just enough to make a difference. But he's still one of the top receivers in the league, top-15 for yards, top-10 for pretty much anything else. Yes. Yes, he is.

Pretty sure the social media reports are Making ***** Up(tm) as I recognize that profile pic as one he has had for literally, several years. Like I think, since he toasted a guy badly for a TD in 2020 and Josh Allen was giving him an expensive watch engraved "Slime" for Christmas, years. It's for sure not recent, or even this past season

What's your schedule for cleaning your belly button lint?

My thing with McKenzie is, he brought a lot of energy to the locker room and the team reportedly, but I think it sometimes came at the expense of buckling down, watching film, and being prepared. No one was ever voting him in as Team Captain. Hollins was apparently been voted a team captain on 3 of the 4 NFL teams he's played for - Eagles, Dolphins, and Raiders (for whom he only played 1 year). That's amazing. So he's a crazy funny guy, yes, but there's got to be a lot more to him.

I would think it could be the start of a Beautiful Friendship. You go out to a Prix Fixe dinner, say, where the menu includes soup and asparagus. You get his soup, and he gets your asparagus, which he can pick up in his hands and munch.

So I'm pretty sure this guy is a random troll posing as a Miami Herald reporter. -When I ask Google "who covers the Miami Dolphins for the Miami Herald?" the name I get is Daniel Oyefusi. -When I google "Daniel Oyefusi", I get a bunch of Miami Herald articles with his name on the byline. -When I google "John Mark" or "John C Mark" , I don't get any hits from Miami Herald articles. -If you click on the link in his profile, you get taken to the Miami Herald Dolphins coverage - with bylines from Daniel Oyefusi. -And last but not least, google reverse image search of the photo brings up Mark Kelly, WKRN News 2 reporter for Tennessee. Assessment: Troll Last but not least, genuine insiders like Adam Schefter and Ian Rapoport repeatedly say that the Bills are the hardest team to get news out of, that time after time when the Bills do make a move, there isn't a hint, it Just Happens. So the chances of Beane saying something to some rando on twitter are like 0.00001% Beane says that when there's news about the Bills being interested in a player or signing a player or trading a pick, a lot of time it's just a phone call which is part of routine GM 'due diligence', "hey, what would it take to get a deal done for your 2nd round pick?" and depending on the answer that may be the extent of their interest. Don't help the Trolls Propagate.

It seems like you're considering his twitter pic showing him waving good-bye in a Bills uni to be some sort of provocation (like he's waving goodbye to the Bills?) But when he put it there, it was just celebrating a successful play, waving good-bye to the DBs chasing him. The line between rightful pride in ability and "juvenile" is always going to be thin I guess. I do agree with you that it's a huge gamble to count on a rookie and Samuels as our two top WR and agree with you that if Diggs would shut up and lock in, it would be better for the Bills, AND for him in the long run.

Right on all counts. The real question is always, how good was the drafting team's scouting of the position? The Bills do seem to have a knack for being able to identify WR who can play from the later rounds. The question is, do they have the ability to identify the guys who can really play from the top rounds?

The non exclusive franchise tag is a "poison pill" for the trade partner though: "If the organization chooses not to offer an equal (or greater) contract and the player transfers to the other team, they [meaning the original team] are entitled to two first-round draft picks from the franchise acquiring the player." So it's basically forcing a team that's interested in signing him to trade him for 2 1st round picks. Like "Dang, you good, you ain't THAT good!" He's not likely to get an offer sheet from other teams for that.

He has a point: It's for reals that the man seems to need a mirror. OTOH, I do think the degree of furor over this particular tweet is overblown. I could say "it's childish; stop attacking him for acknowledging that the NFL is a business and regardless of what he prefers, at this time of the year a player can be swapped or cut."

Not to take away from your point, but it's not even "the top 2 guys drafted at any position". Look at the 2018 QB draft. I think there's a clear consensus at this point that the top-2 guys are Josh Allen (the 3rd QB picked) and Lamar Jackson (the 5th) Look at the 2022 WR draft - the first two WR drafted were Smith-Njigba and Quentin Johnson, but the next two WR drafted (Zay Flowers and Jordan Addison) out-performed them last season. And Rashee Rice (drafted at #55 in the 2nd round) outperformed everyone else drafted in the first 3 rounds. To further your point that the draft is a crap shoot in many regards, the best receiver in that 2022 draft so far was drafted in the 5th round.

I will just say I am not following your reasoning on this point. I do know that you understand the cap. I'm sure that you understand there's no such thing as a "post june 1" designation for a trade as there is for a cut, where the team's obligations for this season void but the cap stays on the books until post- june 1 ( a trade can actually occur on or after June 1 of course, but the team incurs the obligation of all this season's guarantees) So can you explain what you mean by the statement "Diggs nets us $19M in total cap dollars in 2024 if we cut/trade him after June 1"? If we cut him today with a post-June-1 designation, Check. If we trade him after June 1 - that entirely depends upon whether and how much of his then fully-guaranteed $18.5M salary the trade partner takes on OR if he's cut after today, upon whether he has offset language in his contract which precludes "double dipping" and offers us relief to the extent of any salary in a new contract he signs I'm also puzzled by the "in theory Diggs could give us $24M more dollars if we don't touch the $19M this year". I think this isn't a way contract impacts on the cap are usually viewed, perhaps for good reason.

The Diggs contract is complicated because his $18.5M 2024 salary guarantees..........tomorrow. So if we cut Diggs today and designate him as our other post-June-1 cut (Tre White being the other), we are no longer obligated for his salary guarantee; the portion of his amortized bonuses assigned to this year count against this year's cap (that would be $8.849M, giving us something like $19.36M savings this season); BUT, we roll the rest of his dead cap from amortized signing bonuses onto next season's cap (that would be $22.25M by my calculation). At least, that's how I understand it to work.

Josh needed (and something he said last off-season makes me think he knows this) to be the "bad guy" and step up and shut it down. It's a hard thing for him to do, because it seems his Dad engrained in him to "share praise and accept blame" and that's normally a trait I think we all admire, vs. Aaron Rodgers and sometimes even Mahomes last year, calling out his teammates and throwing them a bit under the bus at times. But Josh isn't always there. There's a lot of watching film in the WR room and sometimes as a "receivers room" including TE and RB (where the position coach may be there), and just hanging out at dinners and etc (where the coaches aren't there). There needs to be leadership and accountability in each position group. That's my question and point - has there been? who has there been with the pedigree, production, and stature to counterbalance Diggs?

This seems like a common enough trait of successful, productive WR in the prime of their careers (Odell Beckham, Antonio Brown, etc) that one wonders whether it either goes with the ego and personality needed to successfully play WR in the league, or whether it results from all the head-blows these guys inevitably take.

Dude, please try to keep up. Samuel has been excelling as a slot receiver who can be versatile and play outside. What is usually meant by "#2 WR" is the flanker or Z receiver, the guy who plays outside and stretches the field. Since Samuel has played a large number of his snaps for the last 4 seasons in the slot (excepting 2021, when he was IR'd early in the season), including his most successful career year under Joe Brady, it seems reasonable to conclude that Brady is likely to continue to use him primarily in the slot, or at least as a mix of slot vs outside. Therefore unless we think Shakir is ready to take on that outside receiver role almost full time (which, I guess we might?), we still need a #2.

I can't believe it took until page 42 for someone to launch this perfect (and factually correct) zinger. Someone with a twitter or X or Insta or Meta or whatever it calls itself now account, ought to make that rejoinder to Diggs. He was indeed not ready for that. I've been thinking about this, and I'll put it out there. When Diggs came in 2020 and 2021, there were two guys in the room who were senior to him in tenure with the Bills and arguably on-par with accomplishments. Diggs was coming to the Bills off back-to-back 1000+ yd seasons. Brown had just had a 70+ reception 1000+ yd season, and he had one earlier in his career. Beasley didn't have the yards, being a slot, but he had >100 targets close to 800 yds and 37 1st downs. Diggs 1st year he came *this* close to breaking 1000 yds. So in the kind of nebulous and invisible pecking order of an NFL WR room, from 2020-2021, there were at least 2 WR there with the production and seniority to tell Diggs to pipe down and shut up. But in 2022, that all changed. After Crowder broke his leg and went out, the WR room was Diggs, 3rd year guy and 50% catch rate Gabe Davis, bit player Isaiah McKenzie getting his first chance to start and struggling with it, and rookie Khalil Shakir. It was reported that Isaiah McKenzie and Gabe Davis went to Beane and asked him if he'd consider signing Cole Beasley. The fan interpretation has been, "Bills were so desperate for WR talent they signed guys off the couch". But then there's the report that in 2022, Diggs used to yell at Allen in the locker room for perceived mistakes or miscues and Allen just took it, but got to the point where other guys were uncomfortable and where Allen wasn't talking to Diggs and their relationship was fundamentally broken. What if the reason McKenzie and Davis went to Beane was that they were searching for a solution, and in signing Beasley they would be bringing back a "Dad" player everyone respected for his unquestioned mental and physical toughness and who had a good relationship with Josh, who could maybe rein Diggs in? Now in 2023, the Bills moved on from McKenzie but only brought in a "gadget guy" in Hardy and a replacement for Kumerow in Sherfield, then a late round rookie in Shorter and some UDFA who quickly became non-factors. So the WR room dynamic was unchanged. Although to his credit, I saw glimpses of Diggs encouraging other guys on the sideline and bucking them up vs. telling the tight ends to "cool off 'cuz I need my Bag." and apparently he cobbled together enough relationship with Josh that they were talking again. But with the thought that possibly, the dynamic with Diggs in the WR room has been a bit "me first" and short on accountability for Diggs, listen to some quotes from Hollis from the Atlantic article, linked in Mack Hollins Hates Soup thread. "Every spot in my mind and in every receiver’s mind is up for grabs. Just because he got a nice signing bonus, there’s no free lunches now that I am here. If you’re a prima donna, this isn’t the room for you. You’ll get called out for it, at least by me. I don’t like soft people." and “I think scholarship kids are pampered,” he said. “Now, a lot of them worked hard and that’s why they got scholarships, but in my mind, they’re just pampered. Just like early draft picks are pampered. I’ll always think that no matter what. I was a fourth-round pick, I was pampered too. I got away with more stuff. It made me feel soft, I didn’t like that.” Just maybe, part of the logic behind the Bills signing Mack Hollins is that he sounds like he's got a bit of the "Honey Badger" in him (He Don't Care!), and might feel comfortable calling Diggs out if he mis-behaves?

Considering Tampa, the team that won the south, had only 2 more wins than Atlanta and a record of 9-8, that could be true.

It's an option, but is it a good option for a team that wishes to contend? Let's look at last year's crop of 1st round WR (click to enlarge) We see that they all played, which doesn't always happen. The best contributor, Jordan Addison, contributed 70 receptions and 911 yds. That would still leave a 40 reception, ~300 yd deficit over what Diggs contributed last year (which was a big 'down year' for him. Now let's look at who else is playing for Minnesota - Justin Jefferson, one of the best WR in the league. Addison undoubtedly benefited from defenses worrying about Jefferson. Expecting a 400-600 yd contribution might be more realistic, and that would downgrade the Bills offense at a point where we all want to see upgrade. IMHO it would make a lot more sense to draft a WR high, and let him develop behind Diggs. Perhaps knowing that he's eligible to be traded in 2025 would motivate Diggs to "put his best foot forward" and having a talented rookie in the room would push him (not to mention this cray-cray ST guy and multi-team captain in the room who thinks every job is up for grabs) Dude. Other teams can not pick up "a chunk of the dead cap". That is money already paid. If you think that happens, please give specific examples. I don't believe you'll find any.

OK. But if we double down on WR in the first two rounds of the draft, then we need to sign more FA at S and DL. You say "Ideal in a SB window year? No, but...." but it could leave the Bills offense kind of toothless - far less than ideal. It would also leave the young WR with Mack Hollins and Khalil Shakir as the guys showing them how to get things done.