Beck Water

I like your optimistic viewpoint. All of the guys you mention have potential. But Kamara had over 1500 yds from scrimmage 3 of his first 4 years in the league (the year he didn't, he had 1300 yds in 14 games Kincaid may be a future star but this season he has 3.4 receptions and 34.5 ypg, which is currently #20 for TE receiving, well short of "star" territory Coleman may be a possible future Brandon Marshall but right now his 2 receptions and 44 YPG are better than Marshall's rookie year, but well short of what Marshall produced in his prime I could go on, but the point is - while I love your optimism, it doesn't match the reality of how our guys have been producing Meanwhile, the Ravens have a rusher who is actually producing at a 110+ YPG level in Henry, a 1000+ yd 2nd year receiver in Zay Flowers, and near or at the top of the league in receiver separation.

I'm not sure you can say the Giants "fluked in in a bad division". The Eagles were 14-3; the Cowboys were 12-5. Daboll and Mike Kafka clearly got decent play out of Jones that year. The "fluke" was that while Daboll had fired up in a post-game presser about how "a tie won't help us", in the end it did, since they made the playoffs at 9-7-1 ahead of two 9-8 teams that arguably were better teams, at least offensively. I think what may be true here is the aphorism "nothing fails like success" (originally a Chesterton quote "there is nothing that fails like success" but I digress). I think going to playoffs his first year and winning COTY went to Daboll's head and perhaps to some extent Schoen's head as well. Some of the stories that have come out about Daboll are awful - far more of a petulant tantruming toddler and hysterical in a crisis than a "Leader of Men". Either he got worse in his 2nd season having been recognized with the playoffs and COTY thing, or his behavior got old with his assistants and players. I have said since the start of the 2023 season, the Giants have just not looked to me like a well-coached team. Schoen's personnel decisions have also been questionable, like not picking up Daniel Jones 5th year then signing him to a big contract, and not franchising or reaching a long-term contract with Saquon Barkley, even though when the Giants had success in 2022 it was definitely as a strong rushing team with an equal number of passes and handoffs and #4 in the league for rush yards.

Isn't that the tune for "The Cassions keep Rolling Along"? So much that is delicious if so. First of all, "Jets" and "Sailing" normally just don't mix well" The "Miracle on the Hudson" speaks to that - it was, after all, a Miracle (made possible due to skill and training). Second, while "Cassions" are traditionally horse-drawn ammunition chests, they are also used to carry coffins. Thanks for the smile.

McDermott has unambiguously said that Hyde will not be seen in the game: "you can see him on the sideline" You are right! I dunno. The other question is, if they're in the game, for how long?

I think you may have misread what I wrote and missed a "not". "I would be really surprised NOT to see Shakir as inactive, given...." My point was above other receivers, the Bills likely want to bring Shakir into the playoffs healthy, so unless they want to give him a chance to meet some incentive in his contract, he likely sits. But he's still on his rookie deal, and rookies don't tend to have incentives as far as I know.

Good article. Of course, the whole picture changed when the Bills cut Morrow and signed White to the active roster. I tend to agree with his conclusion that the Bills may want to look at Gouraige and Cine. Since Cine is kind of a tweener between LB and Safety, and is a physically talented guy (former 1st round pick for Minnesota, ran a 4.37 40) the Bills may regard him as a high ceiling/low floor reclamation project and may want to see how he's progressing. Draft profile for anyone interested

I would be really surprised not to see Shakir as inactive, given that he's been the Bills most productive receiver by far and that the Bills offense looked the most impotent in the Houston loss when Shakir was out.

He's over on the Random Talking Head thread a week ago stating that McDermott is a liability in the playoffs in the guise of a question. I looked for ya. He's been here. May have been on "vacation" a couple times since he made cracks about "be careful or you might be Simonized" It likely won't surprise you that his posting peaks have surrounded the Bills losses or close games that were not predicted to be close - 47 posts the week after the Bills loss to Houston; 27 posts the week after the Dolphins game that was tied in the 4Q and won with a FG with 5 seconds left. You might not notice him as much because a lot of posters have him on "ignore" or just know better than to engage with His Trollish Self.

They can only call two players up from the practice squad without having to cut someone from the 53 man roster, and getting the players back through waivers before re-signing them to the PS. And, each player only gets 3 callups; I believe Mike White has had 2.

Fair points. IF Cook can regain trust as a receiver, it would increase his value to the team as a player....and his value on the open market. Problem is, he won't show if he has or has not done this until next season...and at that point, he may be in the "let's test free agency" mode, teams big bargaining chip being "hey, we'll pay you before your contract year which could mean you're taking less, but then you're paid and it's in the bank in case of injury" Fair point on Ty Johnson.

like the title says

I have never seen Cook run the routes that (say) Ty Johnson has run and make the receptions he has made. Cook may have been a good pass catcher in college, but he's kind of had mixed success with the Bills. He has definitely dropped some balls that he could have caught, and if he caught them would have been difference makers in games - to the point where the Bills seem to have maybe moved on from him as a dual threat back? He catches an appropriate RB percent of his targets, but his targets dropped off. It seems as though last year they were having him run routes and that's stopped. I definitely would like to re-sign Cook but it's going to depend on what the market is and his expectations are.

He did. He did well enough to make Poona Ford inactive, and Poona has been starting elsewhere. Oliver also seemed to be playing better next to 1) early season DaQuan, who was a BEAST and 2) later season Linval/Phillips. But I also think he fell off towards the end of the season (he's 36) which is likely why the Bills moved on.

So you might want to take a listen to the Greg Cosell segment on OBL this week They talk about how in the past 5 years, the top 25 players in Y/Sc were WR but this season, 12 of them are RB and Brown wants Cosell's take on why. (this part is about 19:20 in) The gist that I got is that the cyclical nature of the NFL has turned; while a few seasons back, teams were passing all over the place now defenses have evolved to shut that down with playing more 2 high safety looks to take away the seam routes and with more athletic (usually smaller) linebackers and nickel defense to can take away the underneath routes. So now offenses are back to depending more on the run game, which means running backs are getting paid. I'm not sure that translates to "we ought to pay Cook", and I think the fact that he has a big brother now playing for the Cowboys and mouthing off ought to count against him in negotiations (only 1/2 kidding), but the point is...running backs are getting paid That said - the guys who are getting paid north of $12M AAV are the dual-threat guys who can take over a game by themselves: Christian McCaffrey, Saquon Barkley, Alvin Kamera, Josh Jacobs. They all have multiple 1000+ yd seasons and in the case of McCaffrey multiple 2000+ yd seasons in Y/Sc. The next tier, the $8-10M guys, again, multiple 1000+ yd seasons. Dalvin Cook tweeting about his bro getting $20M/yr - Good Luck with That.

Can't we just wait until we see the path clear to that? Call me supersitious, but the Bills have a long path to go to get to that point.

For some reason I read the "Subject:" line and that old Jay and the Americans song starts playing in my mind: "And I knew, yes I knew, I should leave, when I heard her say: Come a little bit closer you're my kind of man, so big and so strong"

I missed watching the Ravens beat-down where he played the most, but it was noticable that even when Bernard went down again for a game and Spector was injured, the Bills didn't put him on the field again. And he's been waived and cut twice. Which sort of speaks to your point. It sort of reminds me of last year's path for AJ Klein, and we all know Klein wound up playing most of the WC round and starting at MLB in the division round - and that didn't go to well. The thing is, with Bernard nursing a couple injuries at this point (ankle and now quad) and Spector on IR and unavailable, it would be kind of nice to have SOME option beyond Ulofoshio

No sorry. It goes on our record and impacts draft choice

Only if the other two are disqualified. They can't just be healthy and available but benched. And yes, the QB that is replaced by the emergency QB can return to the game. The rule gives specific examples, such as being evaluated for concussion but passing the evaluation; undergoing tests such as xray which are negative etc.

What he looked like for the Bears and Steelers or the fact that he got benched in favor of The Reindeer wasn't enough for you? He would need to be active this Sunday in order to play, assuming Josh Allen is not disqualified or injured (AVERT!), but simply replaced by Trubisky. If Trubisky is injured the NFL would expect them to put Josh back in the game if he's healthy. Of course I guess they could make something up but I think that would be Very Bad Juju But, White would be available as an emergency 3rd QB for playoff games without having to be active.

I did NOT see that coming. Who did they cut? Woah! I guess that answers one question of whether they see him as a viable backup LB. Wonder if they put him on the practice squad? Either way, now we have even fewer LB and less depth.

Thanks. Though wondering if you have any insignt on the other points that I raised - that the Bills have 2nd fewest 3rd down attempts against them? Why do you think that is?

That is correct - but Bernard looked best the first 4.x games when he was playing next to Milano. And Dorian Williams was not playing LB very much last year. They started him the next game after Jax in place of Milano and quickly said "nope, not gonna work". They tried various combinations and settled pretty quickly on the Dodson/Poyer platoon (Rapp backfilled at safety when Poyer moved up) At DT they were playing some combination of Jordan Phillips out of position, Tim Settle, Poona Ford then Linval Joseph, and some other guys. This season, Tim Settle seems to be playing pretty well for Houston - started every week since Game 7. Poona Ford has started every game at DT for the Chargers who seem to have the best defense in the league on points and #12 for yards so, better than ours. Linval Joseph has been seeing regular snaps at DT for Dallas. Anyway. Bottom line, yes the DTs and the LB next to Bernard were both different last season. Top of the 2nd round

Say WAT? Um, yes, it has. His fellow LB last season after Milano went out, was Tyrell Dodson platooned with Jordan Poyer on passing downs. Last season, the cast of characters was different at DT, and the ones that are the same (DaQuan Jones, Ed Oliver) are assessed by most as having played signficantly better than they have been this season.

Hey Gunner. First off, wondering source of your stats? Pro-football-reference, which is typically accurate for stats such as this, has the Bills at 29th. Not that 29th is good, but it is a little bit higher than 31st. Next point. If you look at sheer number of third down conversion attempts, the Bills are 2nd in the league at 189, 2nd only to the Lions who have 174. The league median in 3rd down attempts is 201, so the Bills have 12 fewer attempts against them than league median. So one needs to think about why that is, and what that means. It could be bad news - that the Bills have fewer 3rd down attempts against them because they're letting teams score without needing to convert as many 3rd downs? And there could be some of that - the Bills have given up some TDs on Big Plays. But the fact that the Bills D is 11th in points against even after giving up more than 30 points in 3 games (Rams, Vikes, Ravens) suggests that's probably not the answer. It could also be a TOP issue - if the Bills were allowing opponents less TOP, they might have fewer 3rd downs. I actually don't know where to find TOP stats, but I would think we could use # of plays as a marker for TOP, and the Bills D is smack in the middle there - 17th, 1 play to opposing D more than average. So nope. Or it could be good news. Maybe the Bills are taking the ball away more so the opponent gets to fewer 3rd downs? The Bills as we all know are tied for the league lead in turnovers, with 31. So that could be an answer - if the Bills are taking the ball away there are fewer 3rd downs for the opponent to convert. Anyway, I thought that was interesting.