Beck Water

Premium FA, No. I had hopes of a draft pick though. 2nd round maybe. The thing is, we heard exactly the same song from Beane about Cody Ford. He was playing hurt, he had surgery off-season and didn't get in a full season of conditioning, I think we'll see that he's one of our best 5, weren't those the lyrics? Same theme slightly different words with Brown. I would love to be wrong and to see Brown make a big improvement. In some of the Bills "fluff" pieces, Brown comes across as a guy who not only doesn't grind in the film room and meetings, but who mocks out others who do (Bates). That's not a guy who is going to make the steps the Bills need from him.

It reached its nadir in 2011 with the Bills. For most of the rest of his career, and especially after Bill O'Brien benched him in Houston, Fitz did a bit better with the picks. And for the most part, in the rest of the career, it was his brain writing a check his arm couldn't catch, not the "I expect you to run this route, but you ran that route" that we saw with Stevie.

This is the sort of signing that I really don't know how I feel about. If he's on a cheap contract, it makes sense to bring back someone who knows the offense for camp and etc. He's got Game, and there wasn't that big a fall off from Brown to Quessenberry last season. But that's a very low bar to say "not that big of a fall off from Brown to Quessenberry". We simply can't improve our OL by keeping it the same, so if it's "Conner McGovern and a mid-round rookie" my heart just sinks.

It would be naive to think that our GM Beane is speaking "the whole truth" in his pressers. But he sure talked as though we couldn't possibly re-sign Edmunds because that would mean being unable to sign Gabe Davis and Ed Oliver. I think the Bills FO likes Davis a lot more and sees his problems as being a lot smaller and fewer than Bills fans do. I really want to see the Bills draft an offensive player other than RB high in the draft this season, but I think it's a real concern that the Bills don't see it that way. Me, my major concern is these phantom ankle sprains that allegedly hamper him from running good routes for half the season, two years in a row. How do you figure that 85% chance? I would like to believe you. IMHO, the place where the Bills really need to upgrade is on OL. Giving Allen a higher feeling of security in the pocket and a bit more time there will help all the WR. BOOM! You nailed it ...... IF the OL is improved. Knox can be freed to be the receiver we want him to be, and our RBs can be freed to contribute in the pass game more, IF the OL is improved. That would be IMHO, awful.

Says they're all hers, no multiple births. Up until the arrival of hormonal birth control in the 60s, it was not that uncommon for a woman to bear 16 children. If she married at 18, went through the change at 51, and had a kid every 2 years, that's 16. The difference was, before the arrival of vaccines, antibiotics, and the rest of modern medicine, it was not unusual for a contagious disease like diptheria to go through the family like a scythe and wipe out 5 or 6, another contagious disease to take a few more before their 2nd birthday, an infection following an accident or a broken bone to take out a few more - so the family size would wind up at 8 or 9.

Kelce does split wide and run out patterns to the sideline at times (you might be surprised how much), but that's probably a quibble. They're not his bread and butter, I agree. But the thing about Kelce is, he doesn't need to be able to get great separation with speed. He can do a subtle push-off that helps him separate, but at 6'5" and 256, it takes a very athletic CB and help in coverage to defend him because it's "always open a foot over his head" and if the CB leaps to make a play on the ball but Kelce catches it anyway, he's gone. As far as slots and TE NOT being the most physically gifted receivers on the team (emphasis yours) - Do you really want to make an argument that Kelce isn't one of the most physically gifted players on the KC team? I wouldn't go there myself. I agree of course that KC tailors their offense to him, but I'm not sure what your point is - offenses all tailor to their best skill players. We tailored to Beasley. And for that matter, do you want to argue that 2020 Beasley wasn't one of the most physically gifted players on the Bills team in his prime? Think of that one-handed leaping sideline catch during the AZ game. Not the fastest, no, but one of the most physically gifted, yes. I think you might also be surprised at how much, when you look under the hood, the "most gifted WR on the team", the #1, for many teams, actually lines up in the slot or in a stacked formation. I believe Diggs played about 30% from the slot this season, and I remember hearing that one of the drivers for Jefferson's phenomenal season with the Vikings was that he played much more from the slot last season. Bottom line, I don't think you get to exclude Kelce from being the Chief's #1 receiver on the grounds of "living over the middle", unless you also look at how much all the other top receivers last season "lived over the middle" and exclude them too, and look at how much other teams tailor their offense to their #1. It's analogous to discounting the Bills run game as too reliant on Allen, then comparing to other teams without subtracting out their QB contributions - a lot of the deck re-shuffles.

Agree. That's fundamentally what Chan Gailey taught in his version of E-P offense - "beat your man, get to the spot". There's a downside, though, which was that when Stevie did something Fitz didn't expect or they weren't on the same page, we got some awful interceptions.

Yes, I agree - the Jets need to pull the trigger much earlier. Not just chemistry, but they need a playbook tailored to the strengths of their QB whoever that might be. But they've already limited their options at QB. Who will they move on to, at this point? My point was only that I think GB kind of has the Jets over a bit of a barrel here.

Well, no, not exactly. The contract gives Rodgers an "option bonus" of $58M, exercisable between Mar 17 and Week 1. If it's exercised, it amortizes over the life of the contract and GB owes Rodgers $31M this season but it makes him less tradeable in future years as it gives them more dead cap. But they have until Week 1, so they can sit and wait.

I was not responding to some other poster. I was responding to YOU and your comment it was KC who won and didn’t have a 1A let alone a 1B at WR." You can't really make an argument that KC doesn't have a #1 receiver. Travis Kelce is not only KC's #1 receiver, he's a top receiver in the league. You can make the point that he isn't a WR, but a TE, but when he functions as a #1 receiver I think that looks like a semantic quibble. He runs WR routes, he makes WR level # of receptions and yards. Now you get into a semantic argument "what does 1B WR mean?" I'm not gonna go there with you. My statement was that Juju was a #1B or at least a #2. Smith Schuster is one of the top 32 receivers in the league by multiple criteria - #24 for # of receptions, #12 or so for catch % by a WR or TE at 77%, #24 for yards, #25 for 1D, #32 for Y/G. To many people, that would qualify him as a #1B or 2, you want to say OK he's a #2 I'm fine with that - he was arguably one of the best #2 in the league if you want to call him that. By the way you want to talk "weak argument", "he stinks" tops the list.

Is he a good pass blocker?

Maybe he's an upgrade. Or maybe he's an oft-injured smurf who will struggle to stay healthy, and Allen will struggle to make on-time throws to him that allow his calling card of better YAC. In his best year 2021, he had more catches and more yards in fewer snaps than McKenzie had last season. Please don't get me wrong, I'm reasonably happy with the additions the Bills have made and with their decisions to move on from some good players who made solid contributions like Singletary. I hope they will contribute, and well. But I find it hard to put stock in them as "sure bets" at this point. I hope you're correct, but that's hanging a lot on a Cowboys backup guard and a WR who had 2 targets and 2 receptions in 4 games last season before going on IR.

Houston. 1 yr, "up to" $3.75M, details not yet known.

Went on IR last season with a hammy. Previous year played 15 games Any word on his contract?

Fortunately, you are not our QB1 C'mon man - having a petulant snit about a WR signed to compete at the bottom of the roster, and one who actually did contribute for the Dolphins last year?

I don't follow college football enough to have an opinion on the WR in the draft that's worth the powder it'd take to blow it to hell. I do follow "draftology" enough to know that the chances of getting a player who can contribute in Year 1 are better in the 1st and 2nd round, slide some in the 3rd, and that day 3 guys, if they do contribute, typically take a couple years to find their feet. I also have pretty good respect for Greg Cosell and if he names 2 WR he thinks can contribute their 1st years and believes at least 1 will be available where the Bills pick, to me that's worth listening to.

This is exactly right. I normally think Brandon Beane is a pretty straight shooter, but I winced when he said that thing about not wanting to suck enough to draft Chase. It reeked of excuse-making to me, exactly for the reasons you said - there were quality WR available where we drafted or for a modest draft move trade.

People took it that way, but I think it means the Bills weren't happy with the production of Tanner Gentry or the potential of the guys they had on the PS at the time. The Bills were straight up desperate for bodies at WR after week 9 when Kumerow went on IR. We only had 4 healthy WR (Diggs, Davis, McKenzie, Shakir) and we were elevating and activating Tanner Gentry for 2 games until we signed John Brown. It's pretty notable that even after we signed Brown, McKenzie got 52% of the snaps to Brown's 16%, 64% to Brown's 5%, 56% to Beasley's 14%, 36% to Beasley's 9%, 56% to Brown's 12%. Beasley and Brown didn't get more snaps until McKenzie was out with a hammy for the MIA WC game and probably still not 100% for the Bengals. NOW, overall, did the Bills think they needed to move on from McKenzie? Clearly they did, or they wouldn't have gone out and paid Harty $3.745M then cut McKenzie and signed Sherfield, who had roughly the same yards last season as McKenzie did. But it's also pretty clear that they didn't sign Brown and Beasley because they thought they were better than McKenzie last season; they signed them because they were desperate for a fifth body at WR who had the potential to play better than Gentry, a PS guy, or a guy off the street with no knowledge of our offense.

C'mon Man. KC has a 1A+ receiver. His name is Travis Kelce, and he was 3rd in the league for receptions, 8th for yards, and had the highest catch % of receivers with the top 10 yards. You don't get to discount him just because he's a TE and not a WR. So yes, KC had a 1B or at least a #2 WR with Juju S-S. I don't know if generically a team needs to have a 1B or even a strong #2 at WR, but when they have as little run game as the Bills have, they'd better have a bit more at WR than the Bills had last season, or 1A is gonna get locked in a vault. Where, BTW, Kelce apparently can not be placed because of his size and physicality.

TBH, the dream I have regards getting a WR high in the draft for the change....so I kind of hope we don't pay OBJ what he wants, because I think it's either-or-not-both. And if we want to stay competitive, we really do need to "draft and develop".

I can always be mistaken, but I think fans need to let go of their OBJ dreams. Beane isn't gonna pay him what he wants And frankly, I think there are only so many recovering ACLs a team should be betting on I hope you're right about the rookie in round 1-3. Round 1 or 2 preferred, for me.

He's got enough years and games they may have him on a vet salary benefit contract, where they pay him vet minimum ($1.08M) and a small signing bonus, but he only counts as a 2nd year player against the cap ($940k)

Didn't go to the combine (undrafted) 4.45 at his pro day At least he's not a Smurf - 6 ft tall and 203 lbs, 32" arms. From Vanderbilt in 2017 He may be penciled in as the #5 or #6 WR, but I'm not sure he's just Kumerow's replacement as a primarily ST guy. He played 58% of Miami's snaps on offense (611 out of 1009 plays per PFR, apparently 422 per PFF? Unclear on discrepency.). Apparently played about half his snaps from the slot and half outside. 417 receiving yards on 30 receptions last season, 3rd on the team. For comparison, McKenzie had 423 yds on 42 receptions. I'm thinking he's kind of a back-up plan to Harty and Shakir, in case Harty goes down injured and Shakir doesn't take that desired step as a slot, but also he is someone who is big enough to play other roles than returner on ST. Although that didn't go well for the Dolphins in our first meeting....he's the "Butt Punt" blocker.

There's a weekend lag in the Bills announcements and in the NFL office announcements, absolutely But most of these rapid announcements come from the players' agents to the "NFL insiders". Agents, Rapoport, and Schefter work Sundays. f

Doesn't necessarily mean too much, but in his post-season presser Beane said something about we thought Lawson played well at the end of the year and we'll have to see what happens in FA. About Phillips, he said "he needs to have surgery and he's going to have a long road back" or words to that effect. My translation of Beane-speak is that is if Shaq doesn't have a huge market, Beane will offer him a vet minimum deal, maybe even a vet salary benefit deal, but that he will wait and see how Phillips recovery progresses from surgery before offering him.