Beck Water

Spector was a healthy scratch for the Vikes game. So he wasn't an option when Edmunds went down. But I don't think they would have played him. Fun fact so was Kaiir Elam, so the starting CBs were Dane Jackson and Christian Benford. Starting safeties were Damar Hamlin and ....I kid you not, Cam Lewis (Jaquan Johnson was available and played ST)

Lavonte David decided he wanted to stay with the Bucs - he's been in that area a minute (12 years) makes sense. Bobby Wagner decided "you can go home again!" and got himself released from the Rams to go back to aweing the Seasnakes in practice. Doesn't sound as though either of them were very interested in changing teams.

Reluctantly, I agree.

He's not specifying who those reps are with. Could be Dodson at MLB with the 1s and Spector with the 2s?

I always thought Feliciano was kind of a bully. The guy who compensates for his lack of skill during the play, by acting tough afterwards. You see it differently? If you search "Dawkins" I think you'll find your feelings are mistaken

When Hackett was in Buffalo, the general feeling was he was a dingleberry to Doug Marrone - that Marrone was the OC in fact while he was the OC in name. If I remember correctly one rumor was that he had a bunch of creative plays drawn up that he wanted to run and Marrone put the kibbosh on it. But was that Hackett, or was that "St Doug" Marrone? Rumor was, with the Bills, Marrone was quite the control freak with his fingers over every aspect. PR, OC, OL....

I think that's what Ed Oliver, Greg Rousseau, etc are saying

Count me among the under-raters. There was a reason why the Bills let Marlowe move on in 2021 FA. There's also a reason why the Lions gave him a 2 yr contract but moved on after a year, And why the Falcons gave him a 1 yr contract in 2022 FA but were willing to trade him in November for a 7th. Marlow is 31. Hamlin is 25. If it's close, Youth Wins It's a very valid point that we don't know how Hamlin will react when it's for-real tackling, or whether he's able to be back to his pre-incident form. I could be totally off the wall but I'm not sure the competition is between Hamlin and Marlowe.

Can't argue with that.

By other reports, Murray laid the lumber on his next carry.

Awesome write up, thanks for sharing! Could you tell anything about what happened on the Josh throw to Kincaid that missed him short? Was it some kind of communication error or is Josh having some technique issues?

On the Bengals drive before the incident, I didn't think any of the Bills D was playing well. We can all tell Hamlin was in position to make the tackle when he got the hit that stopped his heart. Isn't it just amazing how Hamlin started 13 games and was 3rd on the Bills in combined tackles, 4th in solo tackles - while taking poor angles and being bad in coverage all year? And Wow - a Safety who takes poor angles and is bad in coverage, playing with another Safety who had multiple injuries or with a STer 3rd string safety, and yet somehow the defense was #2 in Points Against. Seems very odd - almost miraculous

So let's look at this from a football perspective. The Bills currently have 7 safeties on the roster: Dr Poyer (incumbent starter, age 32) Mr Hyde (incumbent starter, age 32) Damar Hamlin (age 25, primary backup last season, played after Hyde injury) Taylor Rapp (age 25, FA acquisition, former 2nd round pick, 4 years with Rams, won Superbowl with them) Dean Marlowe (age 31, 7 year vet, backup on Bills last season) Jared Mayden (age 25, 2020 UDFA, has bounced around SF, Eagles, Bills, Jets PS - was on Bills PS when Hyde was injured) Zayne Anderson (age 26, PS player signed from KC) I believe the Bills usually keep 4 safeties on the 53 man roster. Looking at it purely from the viewpoint of demonstrated talent level and counting Poyer and Hyde "in", Hamlin and Rapp would probably be the next two in terms of demonstrated playing ability. Dean Marlowe looked old and slow last season, I don't think he looks faster and younger this season. So if Hamlin plays at anything close to last year's level, it seems likely that he's still "next man up" along with Rapp. There's a possibility that Mayden or Anderson outplay Hamlin and Rapp, but I haven't heard any noise from them yet. There's also the possibility that Hamlin gets hit on a tackle a few times, suffers mental effects, and decides to pursue philanthropy full time. If the Bills cut Hamlin, it will be for football reasons that will be clear, and will be a 48 yr wonder - no more.

Well, Brown did start 14 regular season and 2 playoff games for the Bills last season after post-season back surgery. I think they're similar just in having had a back injury, which isn't that uncommon for OLman

https://www.audacy.com/wgr550/sports/bills/stefon-diggs-has-been-unguardable-at-training-camp?utm_campaign=sharebutton&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_term=WGRAM Sal C's take

I can't claim to know the intricacies of the Cowboys OL, but I thought Tyler Biadasz was their C and started every game but Week 18 I hope Dion gets it together. I have trouble assessing how he played last season because it's true that when an OLman is playing next to a guy who is struggling, he struggles. More true for IOL but still true at OT.

McGovern is a depth piece who started 15 games for the Cowboys last season. He started 6 and 8 games the previous year. In other words, in his 3 years in the league, he's started 57% of possible games and 64% of the games he's been active for. When teams have a "depth piece" with that much starting experience, he's typically hard to keep because he will have a significant FA market. In other words, another way to put it is "teams with good olines often have to let a UFA like that walk, because they can't match his market".

Miller, Phillips, and Matakevich aren't day to day, they're on the active/PUP list. Did not know about Tim Settle - hope it doesn't linger for him.

I will give Singletary props on that. He didn't start out that way, but he improved a lot in year 2 and by year 3 I think you could confidently say he was a strong pass blocking RB. Slenderness doesn't matter. Fred Jackson famously leveled JJ Watt. Lil' Dirty McKenzie laid some licks down when called upon to pass protect. It's a matter of 1) knowing the scheme - it isn't simple, the RB has to decode very quickly who his blocking assignment might be pre-snap and then understand the impact of any defensive adjustments post-snap on that assignment 2) having quick feet to maintain a position of leverage 3) being fearless to get in the way

I don't think they see Bates as a tackle except for "Break Glass In Emergency". I guess in his cameos at tackle, he looked better than Bobby Hart did, but that's kind of a low bar. If Brown continues to struggle, I think we'll see Brandon Shell, the 8 year vet we signed as a FA. I would expect him to be servicable or a bit better.

That's a great question. I went looking for mentions of him, and the ones I've found were in drills. Which is not to say there aren't any in team work, just I couldn't find them.

Shakir got 275 snaps on offense last season (close to 30% of the offensive snaps). In those snaps, he had 20 targets and 10 receptions - a 50% catch rate. I don't dis him for that, since we don't know if he was scored as "targeted" on throw-aways, but he did have 2 scored drops (10% drops). For the record, that's higher than Davis and McKenzie, the TBD Drop Whipping Boys. I'm not sure why you mention Crowder. He had no scored drops last season.

That's a really great question. As I recall, he was participating in minicamp. I can't find anything about him being placed on PUP or the like. I haven't heard anything about him, good or bad.