Beck Water

We watching the same press conferences and interviews and stuff? 'Cuz I think he comes across like an arrogant prick who is happy to throw his teammates and sometimes his organization under the bus in public and shirk personal accountability and responsibility. I think he's an intelligent man, but I also think he suffers from a bad case of Dunning-kruger syndrome. I grant you this, but it seems like a very low bar. Plenty of NFL players don't have a warrant out on them for cruelty to animals or injuring people with reckless driving or beating up women and children or sexual assault, but also DON'T act like arrogant pricks in their pressers. Serious question, how old are you? I don't wish an injury on anyone. But I also don't think that injuries are doled out as some kind of retribution for bad behavior or bad character. Plenty of bad things happen to good people, and plenty of bad people flourish. I don't waste my time stressing about it.

Didn't some group of thoughtful folks put something in the shape of a penis on Leodis McKelvin's lawn? TP or something?

I agree. I think a similar sort of reasoning may have been at play with Bobby Johnson leaving to become the Giants OL coach. I'm not sure the Bills would have moved on from Johnson if he wanted to stay, but when he asked to be released to move on to the Giants, the Bills went looking for someone they felt would do a better job developing young players. I think similar here - I'm not sure the Bills would have moved on from Butler if he wanted to stay, but given he wasn't happy to be passed up for DC by a young up-n-comer, they were happy to grant his release and go looking for someone they felt might be better able to develop the young players.

I think there may have been less interest in 2021 when the team was essentially "running it back" with few personnel changes and was widely expected to contend again. In general, though, I think you are right After the 13 seconds game in 2022, there was pretty intense interest in how the Bills were going to respond and a lot of sh**ing on McDermott, and of course, there were feelings about the big Von Miller signing, and what the Bills were going to do to fill in for Tre White early in the season. In 2023, there was interest in how the Bills were going to handle Von Miller coming back from injury, how they were going to replace Tremaine Edmunds, and whether Gabe Davis would take a step as the full time #2 (also whether Harty and Sherfield would contribute) And of course now, there's intense interest in the WR corps as well as what are we going to do at Safety

You know, other players have had terrible games, and yet the coaches have maintained faith. For example, Bernard starting for Milano in 2022 against the Jets had a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day. It looked like he was thinking all the time about what he should do and playing slow. Based on that, I had no expectation for him as a possible MLB replacement for Edmunds in 2024, especially when he sat out a lot of the pre-season. And Then...

What you say about confliction with the previous DB coach and Elam may be true, but I would just like to address the whole "DB position coaching change" thing. I don't think it was driven by a desire to accommodate Elam or to "salvage a massive 1st round investment" The Bills had 4 position coaches last season who likely wanted to become defensive coordinators: Al Holcomb (Senior Defensive Assistant) Age 54 - has had two previous tries at being a DC Bobby Babich (LB coach) Age 40 John Butler (DB coach) Age 51 Eric Washington (Assistant HC/ DL coach) Age 54 January 27, Eric Washington accepted the position of DC for the Chicago Bears. So Then There Were 3 January 30, Bobby Babich was promoted to DC for the Bills. Rumor had it he had other teams interested in hiring him as DC. February 2, Al Holcomb was appointed LB coach. He may feel that's his best path to getting another shot at DC; he may prefer to be a position coach. February 7, John Butler and the Bills "mutually agreed to part ways" February 7, Jahmile Addae was hired from U Miami to be the new secondary coach for the Bills. February 20, Tim Graham wrote an article for The Athletic about John Butler: I don't think you need to "speed read" between the lines to see that Butler really wanted to be DC, and thought that at Age 51, he was more deserving of the shot than that young whippersnapper Babich. Butler may have even said "promote me to DC or let me walk" The Bills said "Babich is Our Guy, Walk then" A number of players have spoken really really well of Babich - say that he has a lot of energy and enthusiasm and knowledge of the game and is a great teacher.

Do you search Youtube and X and other media content looking for other GM's? The Texans voided the rest of Diggs contract as a move of appeasement. They added $3.5M of 2025 guaranteed money onto this year's bag o' loot and freed Diggs to look for The Big Bucks elsewhere in free agency. They also did restructure. They converted a lot of his 2024 salary to bonus money so it was paid to him up-front, and amortized it over something like 4 void years - so they'll be paying $5M a year or something like that for Diggs to NOT be on the team.

You know that I clearly wrote why they were brought in, in the post you're responding to? I stopped reading right there.

While a bunch of people around MO are pissed that the Governor commuted Britt Reid's already light sentence (resulting from the favorable plea bargain the DA accepted), the fact is - he pled guilty, he was sentenced, he didn't "get off" Yeah, funny how people assaulted by wealthy football players tend to decide it was all a mistake (on their way to the bank).

Well....I could be wrong....but I think the grabbing at the top of routes has to do with technique, not intrinsic physical abilities like agility. +

I'd be happy for Elam to succeed and if the Bills think he can succeed as a safety, more power to him. If there's one thing a safety needs to be, though, it's a solid open field tackler and willing to come in and thump against the run. Have you seen those traits in Elam? Cuz I haven't...and his NFL draft profile (Lance Zierlein) includes: "Doesn't play to his size in run support duties. Inconsistent coming to balance as open-field tackler.". Not that Zierlein is 100% of course but often I come back to the draft profiles he writes and nod, a few years down the line. Of course I could be wrong, and actually, I'd be happy to be wrong.

Thad has some TV segments with a guy who seems to know ball. Thad should step back and let that guy do the talking.

Well, Well, Well, Well. They wanted a 1-2-3 punch with Collins and Diggs and Dell. Much harder to defend. Also, Tank Dell broke his leg last December. He's young and should heal up, but good to have insurance in case he needs a bit of extra time.

When Beane traded a 3rd round pick for Kelvin Benjamin in his 4th year, and assumed his fully-guaranteed 5th year option (already picked up by CAR) he expected him to "solve his WR room issues". Emmanuel Sanders was also brought in to start as a John Brown replacement, a guy fast enough to get open down field and be #2 opposite Diggs. Jameson Crowder was brought in as Plan B in case McKenzie couldn't justify increased playing time. Those 3 guys were, in fact, intended to be starters or potential starters ("solve issues in the WR room"). Benjamin got injured and lost motivation, Sanders and Crowder just got injured. Bad on Beane that he couldn't predict that I guess? Sanders and Crowder played well before they were injured. Deonte Harty was a whiff by Beane, I grant that. If you're trying to make a "simple" point that the rest of that gang were brought in to "solve our WR issues", your point sailed "wide right. Andre Holmes, Andre Roberts, Jake Kumerow, Trent Sherfield, and now Mack Hollins were brought in as excellent ST who could "back up" the starters at WR. That would be a very strange definition of "brought in to solve WR issues". [Folks here can disagree that it's worthwhile to give a #5 or #6 slot to a ST player, but it's how Beane and McDermott roll, and that's different than pretending they were "brought in to solve our WR issues". They weren't. Duke Williams and Andy Isabella were both brought in as guys with the physical talent to succeed in the NFL, who could play on the Scout Team and maybe be elevated and fill in for a game or two if someone got hurt. I know it fights the "narrative" here, but same is true of Brown and Beasley 2.0: they weren't brought in to "solve WR issues", they were signed to the PS to be elevated and available in case of injury to starters at the end of the season, when we had already lost 2 WR to IR. Kerley Thompson, and Pryor were signed in 2018, when we didn't have a WR room beyond Fat Kelvin and Bath Salts Jones.

Groot at least showed up on the injury report and missed a game First I heard about Floyd battling injury was in @That's No Moon post I was responding to

Details please? He may have been hurt and played hurt, not saying he didn't. But strange how these former Bills players who [edit: are said by some here to have] got hurt and played hurt....never show up on the injury report. Not Diggs, and Not Floyd.

Just to point out that there's another category of justifiable "arm punt", which is the "hail mary" or deep pass as time expires at the half In general, I don't like the idea of "arm punts" because while the punt coverage team is practiced in covering the field and minimizing the opponent's gain, that is not true of the offense

He's riffing on the 2022 rumors that Allen cheated on his GF, got a bartender (or maybe a UB soccer player) pregnant, and (since a baby never showed up, but Allen presumably would have taken care of any offspring) said bartender (or soccer player) may have terminated the pregnancy - something that can't happen in Texas.

I don't know. None of us know. It was notable enough that TV commentators at times were saying "he's not on the same page with Josh Allen". It's not just OTAs, but maybe he didn't join Kincaid and Davis and others who worked with Josh outside of OTAs. We don't get a do-over where we play the same opponents with the same roster and coaches but this time, Diggs attends OTAs. Is that true? I didn't remember whether or not Diggs attended 2021 OTAs with the Bills.

That is your opinion, but historically, it has not been Beane's opinion. And it's not "just for ST", it's for a guy who plays ST but is believed to be a capable WR backup. Since Hollins was able to contribute 57 receptions on 690 yds when given the opportunity to play, "proven capable WR backup" would seem like an appropriate descriptor, No? I mean, who do you think should have been sitting on the WR bench all season behind Diggs, Davis, Harty, and Shakir? Beane has always said, on the Bills, the #5 (and #6 if they keep one) WR has to play ST. The problem last season wasn't that Sherfield was on the roster as a ST and backup WR, it's that halfway through the season Diggs stopped contributing like a #1 WR and Harty never contributed commensurate with the #4/gadget role.

https://www.outkick.com/sports/nfl-draft-tight-end-tip-reiman-believe-birds-combine Tip Reiman. The bird thing was started as a parody of ridiculous conspiracy theories. Much to the chagrin of its originator, it took off and is treated seriously by some.

In hindsight, what Josh had to say about Sherfield during preseason seems like foreshadowning. As I recall, it was all stuff about how he works hard and never complains. (the unstated implication might be that wasn't universally true in the WR room in 2022) Last season, I thought Sherfield was an improvement over Kumerow because I thought he'd be as good on ST as Kumerow, but a better WR. And he was - but it turned out that was too low of a bar. I thought it was unrealistic to expect Sherfield to have the 30 reception, 417 yd season he had in Miami where he played 58% of the snaps as the #3 WR behind Waddle and Hill. It turned out Sherfield played more offensive snaps than I thought and at critical times, due to injuries or due to Diggs taking himself out of the game or being taken out due to the package on different plays. I think it would be totally unreasonable to expect Hollins to be as productive as he was in Las Vegas where he played 94% of the snaps on offense and was the #2 WR behind Davante Adams. It would certainly be totally undesireable, since for Hollins to receive that much playing time would imply that the 3-4 WR ahead of him on the depth chart were struggling with injury or skill.

It's really not. We all know that Beane and McDermott place a high value on ST contributors - Andre Roberts, Jake Kumerow, Trent Sherfield, Siran Neal, Tyler Matakevich. Andre' Holmes is actually a fine comparator because Holmes also made his mark in the league as a ST'er. Andre Roberts had less than 200 receiving yards each season, for the 4 seasons before we signed him. Do we really think that Beane couldn't have found a better back up LB than Matakevich or a better dime back/back up slot corner than Siran Neal? Of course he could have, they were "roster locks" for their ST chops. So no, while I don't love the state of the WR room, having Hollins considered a "roster lock" really has nothing to do with the state of the WR room and everything to do with ST. And no, Hollins will not be the #4 WR - #5 or #6 probably, I think this is likely a year we keep 6.

Hollins has evidently been voted a team captain pretty much, like, everywhere he's played - including an offensive team captain on teams like the Dolphins where he primarily played ST. Including places where he only played one year. I think that says all one needs to know about how he's regarded in the locker room.

Diggs first year here was 2020, there were no OTAs though the WR and Josh did arrange a throwing session in FL that got videoed and photographed and shared a lot, to showcase "see, I'm a good teammate!". I don't remember 2021 2022 and 2023, definitely not here. Anyway I'm surprised Diggs isn't more "see, I'm a good teammate!" and showing up for OTAs on his new team. The post you're responding to said "get to know more" not "meet" and "develop chemistry with Stroud" not "shoot a video of practicing with"