Beck Water

We normally carry 6 LB on the roster and bring 9 or so into camp That's NORMALLY. Check it out https://billswire.usatoday.com/lists/2023-buffalo-bills-53-man-roster-roster-cuts-brandon-beane-nfl/ People aren't always aware because Dodson and Matekevich primarly played teams and had been hanging out as depth 4-Ev-Ah

For the love of God can the posters on TBD stop squealing about CaroLove every time the Bills sign a player who had some association with Carolina? The Bills aren't signing Deion Jones because he most recently played for Carolina. The Bills are signing him because he was a damned fine MLB for Atlanta for 6 years and while he's probably no longer a Beast in the Middle, he's an upgrade on Tyler Matakevich and AJ Klein. The fact that his most recent year was with Carolina is immaterial beyond Beane maybe called Dan Morgan to see if he could get some inside scoop on him, as he would call any FO guy he knew when a player had missed games with injury.

Well, let me put it to you in a different light. Beane has said that the last game the team plays tends to showcase the weaknesses. What happened in the last, the last 2 games really, that the team played? 1) we had inadequate LB depth - Milano had already been lost to the season. Tyrel Dodson, who replaced him platooning with Poyer, was lost halfway through the final regular season game. Terrel Bernard was lost halfway through the WC playoff. So we platooned AJ Klein, Dorian Williams, and Baylon Spector during the Pittsburgh game after Bernard went out, then Klein, 1-armed Dodson, and Dorian Williams vs KC. Let's just say, "It didn't work". 2) our WR were getting out-physicaled by the KC LB and DB. I'm not sure who it was but I literally saw one of our receivers shoved like 3 yards off his route - all legal and within 5 yds of the LOS Basically, McDermott and Beane were forced to acknowledge that 31 yr old Matekevich was 100% there for ST at this point, that they couldn't count on Dodson or Spector to back up Bernard at MLB, and maybe Dorian Williams will develop but he's not there yet. So Dodson and Matekevich are gone. That left our LB corps at Milano, Bernard, Williams, Spector, Morrow, and who? We usually have 6. I don't think they want to count on a late 5th round rookie; if he can beat someone out, great, if not, he can sit on the practice squad. Even if they 100% count on the return of Milano (and in one of his brief press interactions, Milano said that his recovery was on track and he would have a normal off-season; he strode into the building for OTAs like a man on a mission), the Bills badly need adequate depth at LB, that is an upgrade to Matekevich, Dodson, Klein, Spector, and Williams. Morrow started in Chicao 2 yrs ago and Philly last year; he also played teams. It's been 3 years since Deion Jones started in Atlanta, but he played about 1/3 of the defensive snaps for Carolina last season and more for Cleveland the year before (after an early stint on IR). Now Spector and Williams may take a step, not saying they can't especially rookie Williams. But if they don't, Beane is a Man with a Plan. None of us want to see AJ Klein walk out on the field at MLB next to Tyrell Dodson for a playoff game, and that includes Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott.

You make an excellent point, but part of being a 'quality' NFL WR or CB is having that swagger, that self confidence. I think a quality FA WR looks at our roster and goes - "Huh. Rookie who ran a 4.6 40 and can't separate. Two 600 yd slot guys. Couple tight ends, I'm a receiver, don't compare me to a TE, that's offensive (channeling Beas there). Career journeyman ST guy. Imma walk to the head of that class, no problem!" I'm not saying that to diss off Coleman Curtis Samuel Hollins Kincaid or Knox. I think they're all capable of more if Brady designs a good offense. I'm just saying if I were a quality FA WR I would not look at myself as coming here to be #6. Even Mack Hollins, career journeyman, was quoted as saying last year “I mean, the No. 1 spot is up and I’ll go for it,” Hollins said after a recent practice. “Drake is my roommate. He gets no free days. Every spot in my mind and every receiver’s mind is up for grabs. Just because he got a nice signing bonus, there’s no free lunches around here. No free lunches.” Do you think Diggs moved to Houston saying "oh, Nico Collins, 108 targets, 1297 yards, I don't know how I'll get my bag behind him". Hell no. Diggs flew down there saying "you the little dog, now the Big Dog come." He might be mistaken, but that's what's in his head, in any quality WR head.

I don't think he's listening to you. Didn't you want him to bring you Odunze?

Have we had this one yet? https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/39639715/keon-coleman-florida-state-wr-combine-scenes-nfl-draft

I'm with you until you got to $6M on 1 year for MVS. You do realize MVS caught 21 passes for 315 yds last season, playing 58% of the snaps in 16 games and with Patrick Mahomes as his QB? It's like the "Inverse New York New York" - "If you can't make it there, you can't make it anywhere" Chark had more snaps, yards, and receptions, he was behind Thielen, and he had a rookie QB throwing to him, so I see his 35 receptions/525 yds as more excuseable. but....... His last contract, coming off 30 receptions for 502 yds, was 1 yr/$5M fully guaranteed, in part because he missed 6 games with an ankle injury so might have done more if he stayed healthy. Well, he "stayed healthy" but didn't do too much more in Carolina, so I don't know if he's washed, or it was playing with a rookie, or ?? I don't think he's a $6M guy to Beane. I think a difference is that through it all, Mahomes had his security blanket receiver TE Travis Kelce OK, so what is the difference between regular season games where our D gets stops against Mahomes, vs playoffs? Looking at the list of starters in the box score might possibly provide a clue.

Is this a credible source, though? It reads like kind of a fan account. I mean, when an account has to tell you they're "credentialed media" and they don't seem to be followed by many legit media....

It's in Tim's article. She has a degree in geology from U. Pittsburgh and is an executive with JKLM Energy, one of Pegula's two petroleum/gas business. I believe somewhere else it said her brother is an executive working for East Enterprises (or maybe it was Rocky Mountain Oil and Gas?), which is the other Pegula core business. So she's a businesswoman with experience running things and managing people, albeit not sports teams.

Tim has written as though there was some type of skullduggery or power struggle, and also possibly a family feud between Jessica and Terry due to her Op Ed. Which I can't imagine her not clearing ahead of time with her Dad, actually, so let's tentatively rule that out. It seems that other people (not related to Terry Pegula) have also been fired, so it could be as simple as "new boss wants His Guy" and could have nothing to do with Jessica's Op Ed triggering some Family Feud (which is what Tim Graham implies). Wasn't there a lot of turmoil just around that time, with the new COO being fired for having an affair with a subordinate? It also wouldn't be a surprise if the kids from the first marriage did not want to be directly involved with the Bills while Kim was taking an active and visible role in management, but now that she's out of the picture, they're stating a preference and claiming precedence. If Laura is 41 (per Graham article) she would have been 10 when 23 year old Kim married Terry, which has to be...awkward, even if she had no particular animosity towards Kim.

As the consultant said to a branch of my in-laws: "You guys need to stop talking about heirs and inheritance. No one has died." Yes. Yes, they both used to post here and Tim Graham hasn't for years, while John Wawow changed his user name to @Delete This Account

I think it's "deer sauce" or piquante sauce. This guy will tell you how it's done (sauce starts in about 2 min in). I believe it's pretty common in Louisiana to put it on just about everything - pork, chicken, gator, deer, seafood

rooting for him, for sure!

I think the bit about moving up in the 2nd was in his Day 2 post-draft presser. The bit about 'wanting to move up but you can't always find a partner' was in his final, draft-wrap up, post Day 3 presser. He didn't specifically say "in the 4th", but....we had 4 picks in the 5th, and he wound up outright trading our 2nd 5th for a 2025 4th. I don't think it's a huge surmise that there may have been more players he wanted to draft in the 4th than in the 5th, where he flipped one to next year. It's not a surprise that Beane would want to move up in later rounds; wanting to move up in later rounds as well as the 1st is a fairly frequent Beane MO.

I agree with both bolded points. In recent history, Rousseau and Basham come to mind. I think one reason it doesn't work out so well to double dip is illustrated in that pairing; there's a tendency, I think, to hedge one's bets in other ways than numerically. Rousseau was the high ceiling, low floor "boom or bust" guy. Basham was supposed to be the more NFL-ready 3-year starter with draft notes about his technique, explosiveness, and "plan", the high-floor low ceiling guy. But coming from a lower level of competition (I think? Wake Forest?) his floor wasn't high enough. True. But I think part of Beane's choice to draft an RB, would be that the RB room has 3 returning vets in Cook (3rd year) Ty Johnson (6th year) and Reggie Gilliam (5th year). The WR room on the other hand just lost two leaders in Diggs and Davis. We do have Shakir in his 3rd year and journeyman vet Mack Hollis. But that may have been a factor in choosing to go the FA route at WR And I think it's likely we'll add a vet RB in FA as well.

Thing is, keep in mind we went into last season with Cook, Damien Harris, and Latavius Murray. Ty Johnson was on the practice squad and became an injury replacement for Harris before Game 7. Latavius Murray getting stem cell injections to try to eke another season out of his 34 yr old body; Harris retired; and Ty Johnson was less effective than either Murray or Harris (13 ypg vs 20 or 15). And it's not like Johnson was a rookie - that was his 5th year in the league. So if we want to run the ball effectively, and we don't want our #2 RB to be named Josh Allen, we can't "run our RB room" back with Cook and Johnson. We need more running backs to stay in the same place. I hear you on the "more insurance", but I think Beane may be looking at it as - how much insurance does a WR you draft at the end of the 4th round truly provide? And then, is it significant additional insurance above and beyond what our 5th round pick Shorter, 2 UDFA Shavers and Thompson, the two vet 2nd rounders Hamler and Isabella, and now 3 year vet Quintez Cephus, provide? I think it's possible that Beane had a WR he liked higher up in the 4th and was trying to move up into the first 10 picks to grab one of the cluster of WR who went in the first half of the 4th, but it takes two and sounds like no one was buying what he was selling. I think I caught something about trying to move up but no one was interested (of course, there were a cluster of other RBs drafted in the 4th and some other positions, so who knows what he wanted).

Oh, yeah, that grounding call was kind of unique. Though I'm sure it's happened before - think it might have happened to Fitzy a couple times on the Bills. IIRC, people who know something said on at least one of those routes, Davis made the right call given the defense and Allen made the wrong call (happened a couple times with Shakir as well IIRC). Part of that is "the QB has fractional seconds with 300 lb behemoths bearing down on him" and part of that may be just not getting on the same page - maybe it's technically the right call but not aligned with Allen's preferred throw or Allen's preferred throw under duress. I think we didn't see that kind of thing so much from guys like Tom Brady because when the behemoths revved it up, he said "***** it!" and took the checkdown instead of Going for the Gusto, and maybe Allen should be doing a *wee* bit more of that, too.

Oh, Wow, Shaw. I don't quite know what to say here. I do think there's an element of Beane being practical - as Beane himself said, if Coleman had run a faster 40 time, he likely wouldn't have been there when we picked. And I think he went into the draft thinking "I better come out with a S and a DT", so 4th round was the first time he thought adding an RB added value. I think Shakir and Kincaid are good athletes, but not receivers who can do everything. Nor do I think Coleman is a receiver who can do everything. I think they all 3 have things they are better suited for, physically and in terms of skills. Seeing the addition of Coleman and Samuel as evidence Beane "clearly was not looking for the killer big downfield threat at receiver" seems odd to me. Beane explicitly said Coleman's role would be to play as the "X" receiver. That's traditionally the boundary guy who is a threat downfield. Now maybe Beane is wrong, and Coleman can't get off press (Beane said he was good at press) and can't separate "enough" downfield, or maybe Beane is "speaking with forked tongue", I don't know, but that's what he said, and (returning to the "being practical") who was on the board who looked more like a killer big downfield threat within reach of pick 28? I literally blinked and jolted back when I read "drafting Ray Davis [at the bottom of the 4th round] "sends a strong signal that the Buills intend to be a serious running team". I mean, it's certainly possible that Davis will take touches from Johnson. Johnson had 37 touches in 91 offensive snaps (30 rush, 7 receptions), though, so that's kind of a low bar? Latavius Murray had 102 touches (22 targets, 79 carries) in 351 snaps, so I think that's the production we're trying to replace, and the question is between Johnson and Davis, is that enough, or had we better add a FA who can pass protect? The run game we showed at the end of the season also reflected an outsize contribution from Josh Allen - jumping from 4-ish to 9 rushes per game. If we want to be a serious running team and not run our QB into the ground, I think it's reasonable to ask if a stable of Cook, Ty Johnson, and Ray Davis at RB is "enough"? I mean, you may be right that the Bills intend to be a serious running team - moving on from Morse for McGovern who at least in theory, should be a better power game center at the expense of pass pro as well as Brady's actual shift from 42% to 52% rush sort of imply that. But if they want to be a serious running team, is taking a 4th round RB really enough of an add? Time will tell I guess.

LOL he said he scoops out all the seafood but leaves the "sauce". A decision approved by Mack "did you ever see a lion eat soup? I want food I can eat with my hands!" Hollins.

Riffing on this, there may be some "Devil in the Details" in the approach used. I noticed that Beane said Allen calls or texts him and says "I've been throwing with this guy, what do you think about him?" or "I've been watching this guy's highlights, what do you think?" I think it is possible that a certain HOF QB who recently switched teams and who was pretty loud about not having any input into team decisions, just MAY have approached his GM with more of a "this guy is really great and you ought to go get him for me" or "keep this guy on the team", which might elicit a rather different reaction from the GM and FO than "hey, what do you think about...."

I think you have a valid ask "if the Worthy and Coleman picks were flipped, would the same people have the same concerns?" My guess is not so much, if only because Worthy generated so much "buzz" with his fastest 40 time while Coleman's 40 was "slug like". But I'd project there might still be a reasonable number of fans who would feel concern that Coleman was an unheralded underdeveloped Beast while Worthy was a fragile twig who was going to be snapped in two by the Chiefs linebackers, because I think you're correct that people believe the Chiefs know how to do things better than the Bills - and their belief has a good basis, until proven otherwise. With regard to this board, we have the Weasel Words you "doubt very many" fans feel they know better than Brandon Beane. We've just seen (weasel word alert) a significant number of posters who are loud and proud complaining about who the Bills did or did not pick in the just-completed draft. In absolute numbers, as a fraction of the overall board membership, it may not be very many but as a fraction of people who actively post (including some who I normally consider astute and knowledgeable posters), we see various forms of that. As for the playoffs, I'll worry about getting there first. Then I'll worry about whether or not Worthy pans out as a rookie pick and whether or not the Bills and Chiefs face off.

Davis has 20 career drops and 18 career interceptions against him. Whilst some of those are in no way his fault (Josh forcing the ball or just throwing in his general direction), a goodly number are balls he got his hands on but didn't complete the catch, or that ricocheted off his hands.

I don't know of a good breakdown overall in depth breakdown, just little pieces. After the Diggs trade, in one of the OBD segments Greg Cosell minced no words about Diggs. Spoiler: he said Diggs was "no longer a #1 receiver physically at this time". He referred to Shakir as "their new #1". He puts some film clips behind his assessment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfWFFj1lsW8 I also put some breakdowns of Brady games into the "comes down to Brady" thread On the other hand, Devin McCourty said that "it looks like they're trying to prove they can win without him" (Diggs)" prior to the 2nd Miami game. So it may be a "chicken-egg" thing; perhaps Diggs was ineffective as the Bills had been using him, so they were trying to put him into different roles where he could still be effective, and that looked like "trying to win without him" to McCourty. Of course, we don't know why; was he suffering nagging injuries, or has he physically declined? For either reason, it appears to have been intentional. You can find a beautiful breakdown of each receiver first and 2nd half of season - in fact it's upthread here

You initially said 21 (2 rb, 1 TE) then corrected that you meant 12 (1 RB, 2 TE). But a red zone package with 2 backs may actually be a thing. Recall we have Reggie Gilliam, who is a decent receiver (77.8% catch rate) and a pretty effective lead blocker on runs as well. I think it's going to depend upon how Kincaid's blocking chops develop this season - he may be an effective red zone target, but last year he wasn't effective blocking in the compressed space of the RZ, more so blocking downfield where it's more a question of "just get in the way for a moment", he did that pretty well. So as of last year, if Kincaid was on the field in the RZ in a 12 set, that made it effectively more of a 11 set with 3 receivers if that makes sense? But if his blocking takes a step, then we could easily see more 12.

I've been digging around for breakdowns and analysis of Joe Brady's offense and this seemed like a good place to share. Breakdown of his gameplan vs Jets last fall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlsVfKrS9TQ Kurt Warner QB Confidential analyze Brady game plan Bills vs Jets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUfXEIL_N6c Cover1 on Bills vs KC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fOIetvLoiM Assessment of his passing game concepts as LSU Passing Game Coordinator Cover1 https://www.cover1.net/lsu-bunch-formation-passing-concepts-film-analysis/ More concepts from LSU offense https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq0QNqjh5JE A look at why Joe Brady's offense failed in Carolina https://www.si.com/nfl/panthers/gm-report/a-look-at-why-the-joe-brady-experiment-failed Welcome any more finds anyone has with insight into how Joe Brady might shape the Bills 2024 offense Where I am so far: 1) don't expect LSU's offense. He had Ja'Mar Chase and Justin Jefferson. We don't have Ja'Mar Chase and Justin Jefferson. 2) overall thoughts seem to be Brady was too vanilla in Carolina - not enough "eye candy" or pre-snap motion. But whether one can pull that off and make it effective, ultimately depends upon the player personnel to Do Their Job, too. 3) at the end of last season, it was very clear that Brady's offense ran more. Under Dorsey, rush snaps were 42%. Under Brady, 52%. But, a big part of that were Josh Allen's rush snaps increasing from ~4 per game to ~ 9 per game. In 2022, Josh was 8 A/G; prior to that low of 6.5 high of 7.4. a) does this represent a change in philosophy to a run-first team, or b) Brady making the best use of the pieces and plays he had available mid-season? or c) trying to give Allen's shoulder sprain some rest so it could heal up? 4) Greg Cosell and others have commented about a switch to "big receivers". with Dalton Kincaid and now Keon Coleman. But we still have plenty of smaller receivers on the team - -Curtis Samuel 5'11 195 4.3 40-time -Khalil Shakir 6'0 196 4.43 40 time and 29" arms; -KJ Hamler 5'9" 178 reported 4.27 40-time (oft-injured dark horse; 2020 2nd round pick #46) -Andy Isabella 5'9" 5'8 3/4 29 3/4" arms 4.31 40-time (never-productive darker horse, 2019 2nd round pick #62) Are we switching to big receivers, or just trying to fill a gap in what we've previously had, which is a collection of smurfs and average guys? I think it would be a mistake for the Bills to try to run more. Bills finished the 2023 season #5 in attempts and #7 in rush yards. That would be an amalgam of a very pass-centric early season and a run-centric 2nd season. We also finished #8 in passing yards, which is similar to 2022 (8) and 2021 (9) vs 2020 when we were 3rd. In rush yards we were 20th in 2020, 6th in 2021, 9th 9n 2022, 7th in 2023. But a lot of those rush yards were on the back of Josh Allen, and a good fraction of Allen's runs are scrambles. I would like to see the Bills develop a more effective run game that does not involve Allen, for the sake of his longievity. Thoughts? Knowledge of what Brady did as pass game coordinator at LSU and tried to do in Carolina? More assessment of what he did last season?