Beck Water

If I could put a stake in one myth on this board, it's the "McDermott will never play rookies". McDermott will play rookies every game all game - if he sees that rookie as the best choice for the job. But "Nothing is Given, Everything is Earned". The rookie who doesn't go hard in practice, who doesn't master the playbook, who can't apply the playbook on the field, who isn't taking "corrections" into the next week's practice and the next game, is going to find his ass sitting down. And he's not gonna play ahead of a guy McD and staff see as the better player, just because he's our "hope for the future" or some such. "Talent is as Talent Does"; you seem to be arguing that a more talented guy (guy with higher physical potential?) should play ahead of a guy who has the playbook down and is in the right place at the right time doing the right thing in practice and on the field, but makes a mistake. McDermott disagrees, and I do too. Put the best guys as of today on the field. Let me introduce a concept mind-boggling in its simplicity: McDermott will play whoever he sees as the best player for the job. When McDermott took over in 2017, he played rookies all the time - Tre White played close to 100%, Dion Dawkins played 100% of the snaps in his 3rd game, Milano played about half the snaps in his 4th game and took over by the end of the season. -Josh Allen played starting halfway through his 1st game, Tre Edmunds played 100% starting game 1 bar injuries, Taron Johnson (4th round) played starting week 3 57% overall, Levi Wallace (undrafted) took over Game 10 and played 97% from then on out -Cody Ford started 15 games as a rookie 69% overall, Devin Singletary played 67% of the snaps as a rookie, Dawson Knox 64% -Gabriel Davis played 73% of the snaps as a rookie, the Bills played an unexpected amount of 4 wr sets because he was too good to sit -Spencer Brown played 78% of the snaps as a rookie, Greg Rousseau 49% - Christian Benford played 62% of the snaps, Kaiir Elam played 57%, Khalil Shakir played 29%, James Cook played 25% It doesn't take most of our successful draft picks 3 or 4 years to contribute.

Well, It's perfectly clear and obvious to me what he means there! (NOT!)

2017. Tremaine Edmunds was just a gleam in the eye of Brandon Beane's newly assembled scouting teams. The Bills went to the playoffs, and lost in the WC round. This was arguably a result of their total inability to pass with Tyrod Taylor at QB, plus having Shady McCoy playing on one ankle, not on the D. The D held the Jags to 87 pass yards and Leonard Fournette to 57 rush yards and lost, 10-3. The defense finished the regular season 18th on points, so a bit worse than middle-of-the-league. They were opportunistic: 9th for TO. They were bend-don't-break, 2nd for passing TDs given up, but 20th for passing yards and 29th for rushing yards and 32nd for rushing TDs. The memory I have is that it was felt our pass D was over-rated, because teams could just run on us - unless we sold out to stop the run. So I thought it would be interesting to look back at what that defense looked like, the year before Tremaine Edmunds was drafted, when we went to playoffs without him. DL: Shaq Lawson-Kyle Williams-Adolphus Washington - (initially Marcel Dareus)-Jerry Hughes (plus rotational players) LB: Zo Alexander-Preston Brown-Ramon Humber (moving to Matt Milano as the year went on) CB: Tre White, EJ Gaines Safety: Micah Hyde, Jordan Poyer Preston Brown, White (because McDermott won't start rookies) Hyde, and Poyer played close to 100% of the defensive snaps. DL assessment: Shaq Lawson was our 2016 1st rounder. Lawson had shoulder surgery after OTAs and missed the first 6 games of his rookie season. I remember being under-impressed by him. Kyle Williams: "Meet the Meatball!" Bills legend, 'nuff said. But, he may have started the Beane love affair with DTs whose heart and want-to are bigger than the frames. Not what he once was, but still a very very good player in 2017 at age 34. Adolphus Washington: Bills 2016 3rd rounder. Started 10 of 15 games in 2017 in a DL rotation, played about half the snaps. Was mysteriously cut after 1 game in 2018, bounced around a couple teams, and out of football the next year. Marcell Dareus: was in the mix and very effective against the run for 5 of the first 6 games, until we traded him to Jax Jerry Hughes: another Bills legend. Very good player still at that point, a bit of a hot-head though "Meet Gary!" Rotational players included a crew of guys I have no memory of. LB assessment: Preston Brown, MLB, was the Bills 2014 3rd round pick. He started outside on the 2014 #4 defense under Schwartz, but Rex Ryan moved him inside in his 3-4. I thought he was a decent player, but lacked the sideline to sideline range and coverage skills McDermott coveted. But as I recall, they mostly made it work. We moved on after the season. Zo Alexander, OLB: played ~half the defensive snaps, 32% to 94%. One Man Gang, what else is there to say? Smart, well prepared, hard working, and went hard; still had it at 34. Ramon Humber: OLB: STer in 2016 but started the season at age 30 playing almost 100% of the snaps, then was injured Matt Milano: started out behind Humber on the depth chart but took more and more snaps when he was injured then kept them when he returned ('cuz McDermott rookies) In these days, the Bills played more 4-3 base. Brown was on the field full time, and Humber started out that way, but they ended the year mixing it up situationally. CB assessment: Tre White made more mistakes then, but his quality was clear and yes he was a rookie and yes McDermott played him. EJ Gaines played 100% of the snaps when healthy but missed 5 games due to injury and parts of 3 others. We didn't bring him back. I think Shareece Wright, who was a 2011 3rd round pick from the Chargers, subbed in for him. I'm not sure who was our Nickel back that year. But even then, IIRC, we hardly played any dime, using Milano as a hybrid role or Zo as our "heavy nickel" Safety: the foundational year of Dr Poyer and Mr Hyde. They had more athleticism and less wisdom; the mind-meld was only just getting started. What's My Point? Well, a lot of folks (including me) are worried about what life looks like for the Bills D without Tremaine Edmunds. And I don't know. But I do remember that a lot of people felt Preston Brown was not very good as a MLB, yet the Bills did manage to snag a playoff game and field, at least, a middling D. I would say our current DL of Von Miller (hopefully) - Ed Oliver - DaQuan Jones - Greg Rousseau is better than what we fielded in 2017 CB, if healthy again, Tre White and Kaiir Elam has potential to be better than Tre White (rookie) and EJ Gaines/Shareece Wright Safety, same guys! Older and wiser, so maybe that's a push Nickle, Taron Johnson is very good LB - Milano is now a Force. So whoever is the MLB in 2023 should have a lot more quality pieces around him. We may not be a #2 D or maybe not a top-10 D, but we can hopefully get 'er done.

I think there's some of that. In 2021, Davis played 571 snaps and caught 35 receptions for 549 yds In 2022, Davis played 926 snaps. Scaling by number of snaps, we'd predict 57 receptions for 890 yds. He actually had 48 receptions for 836 yds, so he fell off from (or under-performed) a scaled expectation by 9 receptions and 54 yds. But I think people were expecting him to improve at least a little bit, not to fall off, and most of all to improve his 7.9% drop % of 2021 instead of having it increase to 9.7%. Why? How is that different from expecting him to take it to the next level last season?

Reminds you of Kelvin Benjamin? Seriously? Because there is not one little thing about Gabe Davis that reminds me of Kelvin Benjamin at all. Well, they're both WR and they're both Black, one plays for the Bills now and one used to play for the Bills once upon a time. But other than that?

Arizona wants teams to give them a 1st in order to take on DHop's $19.45M salary this year and $14.92 next season?

At the very least, we need better competition for Spencer Brown than Quessenberry. IMHO, we need a 2nd 3TDT. Von has said he needs someone putting pressure up the middle to be most effective. He praised Phillips, earlier in the season when he was healthy. Ed Oliver by himself is probably not enough. Good question if Shakir will step up, but I don't want to count on it. Harty and Sherfield may contribute at #3/#4 also, but again...don't want to count

Clickbait headline. Sounds to me as though David was already talking to the Bucs, with whom he signed for 1 year, $7M My guess is that if the Bills had thought they wanted to pay more than that, or give him a longer deal that could effectively pay more than that, they would have recruited him, had Miller and Allen hitting him up and so forth. But given what they re-signed Po for, the Bills probably had something along those lines in mind (or less) where their cap hit this season would be under $5M while, in order to be interested in moving from Tampa to Buffalo and paying half his salary in NYS taxes (sarcasm), David either didn't want to commit to 2 years or wanted more like 2 years, $16-20M and the Bills were out.

Stop Making Sense

Why do you say that? I'm asking as a serious question, because AFAIK there are only 5 or so teams in the NFL that have a tandem of receivers where both have over 1000 yds. (targets in parens) Eagles: AJ Brown (145) and Davonta Smith (136) Bengals: Chase (134) and Higgins (109) Seahawks: Metcalf (141) and Lockett (117) Dolphins: Hill (170) and Waddle (117) Buccaneers: Evans (127) and Goodwin (142) KC had a >1000 yd tandem 2022 in Hill (159, 1239) and Kelce (134, 1125), and came close 2022 with Kelce (152, 1338 yds) and TikTokBoi (101, 933 yds) Other successful offenses have kind of a "Star and Guyz" model, where their #1 gets well over 1000 yds and then 2 or 3 other guys spread it around. Cowboys with CeeDee Lamb (156) and then Schultz/Brown/Gallup (89/74/74) Lions with St Brown (146) and then Raymond/Chark/Reynolds (70/64/59) Vikings with Jefferson (184) and then Thielen/Osborn/Hockinson (107/90/86) Jaguars with Kirk (133) and then Zay Jones/Engram/Marvin Jones (121/98/81) The Chargers were a "third hand" because their top receiver by targets was their RB Eckeler. They didn't have a receiver with >1000 yds but instead had 6 WR with more than 500 yds, making them the #3 passing offense for yards. The teams which have two 1000 yd guys, have 2 guys with over 100 targets and sometimes distribute the targets pretty equally. Teams which are more a "star and guys" offense, seem to have 1 guy getting >150 targets and everyone else <100 (Zay Jones on the Jags and Thielen on the Vikes exceptions where their targets exceeded their yardage production) My point is that there are different ways to run an offense, and I'm not sure what the Bills are really trying to do. They kind of seemed bi-polar. The Bills have Diggs (154 targets, 1429 yds) then Davis (93/836), Knox (65/517) and McKenzie (65/423). If they're trying to follow a "two top guys" model, then sure, Davis didn't get enough targets and he didn't catch enough of them. On the other hand, if they're trying to follow a "Star and Guyz" model where they spread it around, then the problem might not be Davis not having enough targets/yards; the problem might be not getting enough targets and yards out of Knox and McKenzie. In the latter case, the solution isn't to get a 1B or a better #2 WR to supplant Davis, the solution is to get better production at TE and from #3/#4. Where I say the Bills seemed kind of bipolar, is that I felt Allen consistently tried to force the ball in to Davis when he was double-covered as though determined to make him a #1B or top #2 WR. But then we'd get to the press conferences and Dorsey would say things about being a better offense when we're spreading the ball around more and Allen would say stuff about needing to find open guys and get them the ball more and spread it around. Anyway @Shaw66, this harkens back to where you said that the Bills don't need a #1B receiver because KC didn't even have a #1A WR and won the Superbowl. And while I still hold to it that KC, in fact, had a top receiver last year - his position is just TE not WR - in that discussion I don't think I stepped back enough to Ack what may have been your underlying point that there ARE top offenses which don't have a 1A and 1B WR, and that the Eagles, Bengals, Seahawks, Dolphins (and maybe Chiefs) are not the only way to run a top offense. For reference, the top offense on points scored last season were Chiefs, Eagles, Cowboys, Bills, Lions, 49ers, Vikings, Bengals, Seahawks, and Jaguars Top passing offenses were Chiefs, Bucs, Chargers, Dolphins, Vikes, Lions, Bengals, Bills, Eagles, Jaguars. I omitted the 49ers from the discussion because of their QB situation - too hard to tell what they were trying to do But anyway, half of the top scoring offenses last season didn't have two >1000 yd receivers and same is true of 4/10 top passing offenses.

6 of the 19 missed games. He was suspended 6 games. What's unknown is how many of those games he might have missed or been less effective for had he not taken whatever PED he took to try to accelerate healing of his MCL injury - and since it 'flared up" at the end of the season, is it really Good to Go? The perceivable drop off in Hopkins' play was in 2021, when he had rib and hamstring injuries which apparently hampered him while he was playing, and dropped from his usual 7 receptions and 78-80 YPG to 4 receptions and 57 ypg. He wasn't hampered whilst playing in 2022, but he missed the first 6 games of the season (suspended) and the last 2 (flare up of knee injury), so it's a good question whether he could still maintain production over, say, a 20 or 21 game season at this point. I think the Hopkins effect on OL, is that if the Bills spend their entire FA wad on Hopkins vs. picking up a capable DL or LB as FA continues, they're more likely to go heavy on D in the draft instead of drafting OL and WR. Just my opinion and I'd love to be wrong. I don't think the Bills will add a Day 1 or Day 2 OL pick if they sign DHop, for the preceding reason. OH, Ho ho. Since you ask: Tristan Wirfs (RT, Tampa) Justin Jefferson (WR, Vikings)

Hopkins has been "the main man" in terms of Y/G and R/G, basically, every season since 2015 except 2021 when he was hampered by rib and hammie issues and went "even steven" with Christian Kirk. And most of those years it hasn't been close. Does Hopkins and his Ego know that we don't have to feed him "like the main man"?

OK - but is DHop really the missing piece between the Bills and a SuperBowl Chance? Keep in mind, again, he's missed 19 out of the last 2 years 34 games, and that it's hard to throw completions if the QB is running his way out of trouble or getting hurried. Von Miller wasn't the missing piece between the Bills and a Superbowl last season because he had a season-ending injury, an ACL. DHop missed the last 5 games of 2021 with a season ending injury, an MCL tear, and had a 'flare up' costing 2 games at the end of 2022. I mean, if the Bills win the Superbowl next year or in 2025, the way I am now, I'm personally all about living through a tear-down. But that's not what Beane claims they want to do. So signing DHop might be incompatible with his claimed goals. And also - if fan talk about cap considerations bothers you, why not just move on by and find something that does interest you instead of railing at people who do like to think about these things?

This is actually a great question and probably deserves its own topic as discussion. McDermott has always built his defensive system on a heavy rotation of keeping guys fresh. But, that inevitably means we're paying more players on DL - and paying more players, it follows that we can't follow a "Stars and Jags" model where we pay the Stars well and the Jags only fill in if injuries strike. It seems to me that the other top teams pay and play their top guys more, and consequently have Monsters up the middle - Philly, KC, SF. But, I really haven't looked "under the hood" to scrutinize the details of snap counts etc. I do know at the end of the season, say from week 9 on, Ed Oliver was getting ~70% of the snaps at 3TDT and DaQuan Jones ~70% from week 13 on until he DNP vs the Bengals. I think that would be because Phillips missed Week 13, 14 and the Mia playoff, and was playing hampered Week 15 and 16 and the Division round, and because Tim Settle wasn't "getting it done" to their satisfaction after an early season calf injury.

This is bunkum. It's true that Cook only got 2 snaps in that game and sat down once he fumbled, but we were also beating the Rams 31-10 so there was no "need" to trust Cook more. However, the next game Cook got 18 snaps and 11 carries. Some Banishment. There were hints that Cook wasn't practicing and preparing the way the Bills expected (McDermott said after one of the mid-season games "he's starting to see that the way you play reflects how you practice"), which taken at face value, would imply there were issues that had nothing to do with a fumble. Then Cook steadily got more snaps until after week 12, he was getting 31-56% of the snaps consistently at the end of the season. That's all consistent with a rookie who at first, maybe didn't give game prep and practice the attention it needed, but who settled in and was trusted more and more by the team as he EARNED IT in practice - not with a team that abstractly needs to "trust its rookies more", that doesn't trust its rookies even though they're ready and have earned trust, or that "banished" Cook for 1 fumble.

If only discussions that could change things took place between fans, fan discussion boards would be limited to 145 pages of "Go Bills!"

What did Basham tweet that's deemed to be relevant?

Truly excellent summation. I would add in only that Arizona will already take on $22.5M in dead cap this season, from Hopkins various signing, option, and restructure bonuses. One might point out that Hopkins at this point is not gonna sign on to be paid less in a trade. So in order to pay a guy $34.5M but lower his cap hit, the fundamental strategy is to extend a guy, giving him a small salary and a significant signing bonus amortized over the life of the contract. That works best with a 4 or 5 year contract since splitting a big bonus over 2 or 3 years doesn't afford much cap relief - but it comes at a risk, since if the player "ages out" and retires or is cut, the team is on the hook for big amortized bonuses accelerating onto the cap. The Bills have one aging superstar, in 34 year old Von Miller, where they've employed this strategy. If Miller is cut or retires in 2025 when he's 36, the Bills take on $15M dead cap. 30 year old Stefon Diggs is another example, where if the Bills cut him, trade him, or he retires in 2025 when he's 32, they take on $22M in dead cap. The other strategy is to tack on void years, and "pay him Tuesday for a Hamburger today". The Bills have done this with a number of players, including Dion Dawkins (void years in 2025 and 2026, when he'll be 31 and 32, totaling $2.8M), Micah Hyde (void years in 2024, 2025, and 2026, when he'll be 34, 35, 36, totaling $3.4M), DaQuan Jones (void year in 2024, $1.8M), and Matt Milano (void year in 2027 when he'll be 32, $4.9M) There's a balance between "staying competitive every year" as Beane insists in interviews, the Bills want to do, and swinging for the fences with a big FA signing or trade acquisition that the team believes will take them over the top. Last year, after 13 seconds, the Bills basically decided they were almost there and their missing pieces were a guy who could "affect the QB" and an upgrade at CB, despite spending a first round pick and 2 2nd round picks at DE the two previous years. So they "swung for the fence" with Von Miller as their big add to take them over the top, plus 1st round DB adding Kaiir Elam. They felt that their OL was "good enough" with Allen's elusiveness, and counted on Davis and McKenzie to take big steps. Well, the OL wasn't, Davis and McKenzie took steps but not enough, and Miller got hurt on Thanksgiving. The Bills can "swing for the fences" and renegotiate a 31 yr old WR who has played 19 of 34 games the last 2 seasons to an extended contract to manage the cap. That would then free them to try to add more talent at LB and DT high in the draft - their MO for the last couple of years. They can do that if they truly believe that Hopkins is that game-changing piece that will take them to the championship and everyplace else is good enough. I don't know if that would be right. I don't know if they've added enough on OL at FA and WR depth, or if they're right to bet on Davis, Shakir, and Spencer Brown all taking steps. I had no objection to trading for Diggs. I felt they needed a top WR who could show Josh Allen what it's like to play with a top WR and show the other WR how they need to practice and prepare and release and run routes in order to elevate their game. I felt we wouldn't get that from a rookie. And for the last 3 years I felt like we got what we paid for with Diggs. With Von Miller, I made a similar argument. It's hard to draft a top pass rusher at the bottom of the 1st round, and maybe the guys we drafted needed a top talent to "show them how it's done" and help them develop. But now we have 2 of these guys, so adding a 3rd in Hopkins seems pretty clear that it will position us for needing to do a salary cap dump and rebuild. I am pretty sure that is NOT the way to stay competitive every year. The way to do that, is to bring in strong cheap talent through the draft - Justin Jefferson now at $2.8M vs. Diggs this year at $14.8M and $27.8 next season. Now maybe it's worth it, if he's really the "missing piece" and we can win a title this year and next then tear it all down. But that all depends upon our aging superstars staying healthy.

Would you be? So the NFL average for rushing yards last season was 2059. The Bills were #9 with 2232, and many of us regard that as a number in need of improvement or at least, as holding constant with fewer yards coming from Allen. So if Harris rushes for 700 yds and Cook for 800, where are the other 732 gonna come from? Allen rushed for 762 yds last season and 763 in 2021. I'd personally like to see him go back towards 2020 and 2019, when he rushed for 421 and 520, respectively, and ~1 attempt less per game.

This is great. I wish someone would do this with all the media draft pundits, so that they have some kind of accountability/metric of their success in prediction

I dunno if Shakir was struggling with the playbook per se, but he was sure as hell struggling to apply it on the field at times. And, I do think Beane traded for Hines in part to free Shakir from the PR/KR role so that he could focus his attention on mastering his WR role - Beane alluded to "a big step up in competition for (Shakir)" and allowing him to focus on WR, when making the move But I believe that people over-interpret signing Cole Beasley and John Brown. The fact is, by mid-November we simply overall had insufficient bodies to play WR. We started the season with 6 WR on the roster - Diggs, Davis, Crowder, McKenzie, Shakir, and Kumerow (primarily a ST). By mid-October, Crowder was out for the season with a broken leg, and we'd elevated Hodgins. Then Beane got caught in a squeeze at CB with the need to activate a player who couldn't or wouldn't play yet (Tre White) while another was injured, and decided to sacrifice a WR to waivers in order to keep an extra CB. Hodgins got sniped by the Giants. That meant that by November, we were giving meaningful in-game snaps to Jake Kumerow just to field 5 bodies at WR, and once Kumerow went on IR 11-20, we were giving meaningful in-game snaps to Tanner Gentry. We literally only had 4 WR on the whole roster, for a team which keeps 5 active every game. Signing Brown and Beasley was a desperation play to bring in bodies at WR, bodies who knew the playbook and were trusted to come with the right attitude - it did not reflect lack of trust in McKenzie or lack of trust in Shakir (although, obviously if they trusted him more comprehensively, he would have gotten more snaps instead of fielding Kumerow or Gentry, I offer as evidence Shakir's snap counts, which actually did not decline, but increased, after John Brown was signed to the PS 11/26 and Beasley 12/13. 39% of the snaps in Chicago on Christmas Eve, 41% in the Miami Playoff. Oh, and 44% on Thanksgiving in Detroit. In hindsight, Beane mis-managed the whole matter of opening Tre White's window and of chosing to waive Hodgins vs. someone else, when Kumerow was apparently struggling with a back issue all season in addition to a high ankle sprain. But, I assume Beane went with the input of trainers and doctors and White himself, so it's hard to fault him too much.

And don't forget a guy like Levi Wallace who walked on as an UDFA, started his rookie season, and kept the job for 4 seasons. THANK YOU! If we look at the two teams who played in the SB, we have 2 teams in the top 10 (TB, CIN) Two teams in the bottom 10 (LAR, twice) 6 teams presumably somewhere in the middle (KC x 3, Eagles, Pats, 49ers) I think the moral of the story is that there's more than 1 way to skin a muskrat build a winning roster This is what we used to refer to as a "garbage can stat" - a statistic which looks important, but doesn't apparently have predictive value.

DingDingDingDing this guy gets it. Starting back in 2017, we picked up some FA that have nailed down their starting jobs - 2017 Poyer, Hyde (already had Hughes), Taiwan Jones (5 seasons, not continuous) 2018 Lotulelei, Phillips (3 seasons, not continuous) 2019 Morse, Feliciano (3 seasons), Addison (2 seasons), Brown (2 seasons), Beasley (3 seasons) 2020 Diggs, Matakevich (ST), Roberts (ST, 2 seasons) And one important factor I can't discern, is how is he counting UDFA? For example, Levi Wallace went undrafted, but played 2805 snaps for us from his rookie year thru 2021. So is he counting as a player we drafted, or no? It's really a factor of where did the guys come from who locked down their roles. It doesn't show that we drafted badly (since in most cases, even the guys we drafted late and moved on from are still playing in the league - see post above). It doesn't show that McDermott won't play rookies, since it seems to be talking about every snap over the last 5 years.

Oh, really? How so? I don't think that's what this data is about. But, Alert the Media; ANY team that doesn't hit on its QB is gonna suck and suck bad unless they have an offense that's predicated on the run game and crafted so that almost any QB can run it effectively (SF)

This isn't just about rookies - he's talking about how many of the guys who saw snaps over a 5 year period were drafted by the team in question, pretty sure. But a similar principle to the "when you have a good team....." applies When you have a team that has a top offense and top defense and is winning a lot of games, the new player is going to struggle to beat out the entrenched player, wherever that player came from. And, with 53 slots on the roster and 7 draft picks per year (max), over 5 years at least 1/3 of the roster (18 out of 53) has to come from elsewhere EVEN IF EVERY DRAFT PICK IN EVERY ROUND IS A HIT, which is of course statistically unlikely. And entrenched starters are least likely to be beat out by late round draftees. No, that can't be correct given the numbers, though I cant find the original article on his website or linked on twitter to see his methodology