Beck Water

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.

You aren't going to free up $9.7M of cap by cutting Tre' White this off season. In fact it would cost you $6.7M additional cap this off-season, or half of the free cap we currently have.

Oh good question! Well played, Sir! Ouch.

Thank you for putting a good bit of thought into this. I understand what you're thinking about - how many of the Bills currently signed players are really solid to make the 53 man roster? And where do they need to add? I think you did a pretty good job of identifying that. One thing to keep in mind is that the Bills aren't looking to fill a 53 man roster at present. They're looking to fill a 90 man roster to go into training camp. So another way to look at it is that the Bills currently have 61 players under contract by my count (look at Spotrac and add up the ones that are lined out because their salaries are lower than the top 51.) A couple of those were actually on the roster last year (Quintin Morris is an example. So the Bills are actually looking to add 29 players between now and training camp. In addition to 6 draft picks, they will likely add 6-10 undrafted rookies, and 13 or so FA. And at the bottom of the roster, those guys will battle it out and a couple will make the 53, then another handful will make the practice squad. For some of the needs you identify (such as a DE to stopgap Miller), the Bills may actually like someone they've already got signed such as Kendal Vickers, who played a couple games for the Raiders. Same thing on OL. I know I will be hella disappointed if you're correct and our "improvements" to OL consist of Connor McGovern, a 31 yr old "fringe" OT like Brandon Shell (is that who you mean?) and a Day 3 C/G prospect. But that's not on you for possibly making an educated guess about what the Bills will do, it's on the Bills for undervaluing the OL. Signing Fournette or Elliot would make no sense (IMHO) because if we don't have a solid run blocking OL they won't help us. BTW currently Matt Barkely is on the roster giving us 3 QB.

Good lord! Is "Gas Mask Guy" Tunsil that good?

Good post. Right now Spotrac shows us at $13.6, with the dead cap from Saffold and Phillips taken out of the top 51 and everyone but Dane Jackson included. Dane's contract must be less than $2.7, let's call it $1.6 for the sake of argument - that gives us $12. You mighta mis-heard Beane. The rookie top-51 cap is $5M, not $3 - Spotrac has it if you scroll down the Bills page, I learned that after I calculated it myself 😲 It's early days to worry about PS - we have to worry about that at the same time as we have to worry about the 53 man roster, not top-51, but I thought Beane said last year they needed $5M. Some crunching, if we have 6 vets earning the max and 10 players earning rookie PS scale, that'd be $4.2M. I would expect Beane to extend a player or two to lower their current cap hit to cover that, and generate a bit of reserve. Bottom line, we have some money left to sign FA or make a trade - at least $7-8M. so if Beane doesn't do it - it's because he doesn't want to do it.

This last part is absolutely true. "Nobody Cares, Work Harder" as Harbaugh would say. Ya gotta play the hand you're dealt, fly the weather you find, etc etc. But if you agree that Allen was NOT in a poor situation offensively starting out in B'lo relative to Mahomes starting out in KC, and that KC's defense "has also sucked most of the time Mahomes has been there", I have a beach cottage in Batavia NY for sale, Wanna buy? Neither are true.