Beck Water

I'm on record as agreeing that we did not do enough at WR. I'm a little puzzled as how you see us having a realistic bite at Thomas, who was drafted at 23? We'd have had to go up at least 6 slots - would Philly have been willing? Detroit took a DB at 24 and Baltimore at 30 (so might have hopped up). Then there's the cost - in Beane's 2 recent 1st round trades, it cost him a 4th rounder to move up 2 spots. So what would we have had to pay for 6? The trade value chart suggests maybe a 3rd round pick - we didn't have a 3rd round pick. Our 2nd round pick, and maybe get a late 3rd or early 4th as change? I don't know if that's realistic. And of course, there's the question of whether Thomas juice would have been worth that squeeze - sometimes when there are 2 or 3 really strong prospects, the 4th choice gets a bit of a "halo effect" bump-up (Kadarius Toney or Jameson Williams, anyone?) The bottom line is, the Bills didn't have Mitchell or Franklin high on their board, or maybe on their board at all. We could have taken Leggette or McConkey sure, but that's instead of Coleman, not a double dip - and if we'd gone up for Thomas, we would have had probably no 2nd round pick so we're still not double dipping. So who is our realistic double, that was apparently on our board? Tez Walker we could have had - but not if we stayed pat in the 1st or traded up, because we wouldn't have had our 3rd rounder. It's possible Beane tried to trade up in the 4th using some 5th round picks, and possible the reportedly "thin" draft left other GMs disinclined to trade. And are we really persuaded, the 4th round talent in this draft is so very much better than last year, or next year? I think there were guys Beane could have drafted in the later rounds, but I think it's a reasonable question if the late round talent was truly significantly better than previous years? I understand your points, but at the same time it somewhat seems to me more like a different way of saying "Beane didn't trade up the way we wanted, or draft the guys we thought he should draft" vs. mapping out a path where Beane could realistically have traded up or kept our 1st round pick to draft one of those guys, AND made a double-dip that was early enough to be part of the clearly superior part of the WR talent.

I agree with questioning the concept that this WR class is a WR draft to end all drafts. Two parts to that: 1) are the WR really all that and a bag of chips at the NFL level? Experience suggests "maybe not" 2) is the class talent really something that won't be seen for years? Example: 2018 was said to be one of the most talented QB classes in years. 5 QB were drafted in the 1st round. 2 were offered 2nd contracts, with a 3rd who has shown some ability to play. 2020, which seemed to have less fanfare, had 4 QB drafted in the 1st round and 1 in the second - of whom all 5 are still starting in the league and have shown the ability to play well, 2 having played in (and lost) the Superbowl. Anyway, 2020 was a great year for WR with 6 drafted in the 1st, 2 more at the start of the 2nd; of those 7, the 1st and the 4th drafted didn't work out and the 2nd is only OK, maybe hampered by his QB. 2021 saw 5 drafted in the 1st, top 3 look great (drafted 5,6, and 10 overall) but so does some guy drafted midway thru the 4th. 2022 saw 6 drafted in the 1st plus another at the top of the 2nd. Top 3 look great, but so does some guy drafted at #52, halfway through the 2nd. It just seems as though pretty deep talented WR drafts are coming along pretty regularly, and that drafts where one position is super-hyped may not wind up producing the expected number of successful NFL players.

Good post. The bottom line is Beane has a mixed track record with the out come of these kind of statements (or with just putting players who have been in a secondary role, into the lineup). He made comments about Cody Ford being hampered by injuries and "his best football is ahead of him"; next training camp, Ford was traded away. Nothing was said, but obviously Davis and McKenzie were expected to step up at WR in 2022; that didn't work out very well. In contrast, MLB worked out splendidly and there have been some other instances - I think Beane expressing confidence in Damar after Hyde went down, and Damar played decently enough "until". FWIW, I started a thread on this after Beane made a comment about "sometimes the answer is already on the roster" with a reference to last year's MLB situation. Basically my conclusion is pretty much the same as yours, except I included Bryan Thompson, an UDFA last season who quietly spent last season on the PS, just as Shavers did. I do think KJ Hamler has a better set of physical tools to start with than Isabella did - longer arms, bigger hands, similar size and speed - but I think the real Achilles heel for both of them is lack of ball-tracking skills and hands. And when a guy has been injured as repeatedly in different body parts (hammy, ACL, pec, pericarditis), you kind of got to wonder if his body is just not made to hold up to football. I think it's notable that of the Isabella/Shorter/Shavers/Thompson pack, Isabella is the only one who got the call and spent time on the active roster last season. As far as Coleman mentioning Hamler, Hamler attended IMG for HS and trained at EXOS pre-draft - so perhaps they encountered each other training in Florida?

Not a surprise

Well....we had a solid WR room in 2020 and made reasonable changes in 2021, but since then, you're not wrong. Last two seasons, we have counted on WR to step it up who didn't or couldn't. I don't feel good about our WR room at all, myself. But the huge unknown (to me anyway) is just what DOES Joe Brady want our offense to look like? Because judging by personnel, he clearly has something different in mind than Daboll did or Dorsey did.

Wouldn't they want to try Waffle House? They serve pork chops at Waffle House, did you know that?

I think they must appeal to a certain demographic, by which I mean the guys who grew up watching Bradshaw as a QB and admiring Jimmy Johnson as a coach. Fox wants to stick with that demographic, while CBS wants to update from Phil Simms and Boomer Esiason.

I agree with this. I think it is obvious that in Diggs, at the least, we had a guy who wanted to win a Superbowl and felt entitled to point fingers everywhere but at the guy he sees in the mirror for the causes the Bills have fallen short 3 years running. There have been a number of vets who I believe, signed with the Bills because they wanted a ring and thought they could ride the Bills to get there. After a couple of seasons, that stales. Vet leadership who from all appearances have great attitudes like Poyer and Hyde, had gotten old and the Bills needed to cut the cord and move on. So a "culture reset" is needed. It's not that we expect a 3rd round DLman to step up and become a leader in the DL room. That's expected of Da'Quan Jones and Ed Oliver. We're not expecting Bishop to necessarily be the DB "field general" his rookie year, that's expected of Edwards. But we're bringing in guys who have that sense of personal responsibility and ability to lead, as our "leaders in training" during this reset. To me, Coleman 100% fits Beane's draft profile for the first rounds. Drafting in the bottom of the 1st, he likes to take a high ceiling/low floor prospect. That's his Jam. I think this was true of Allen, true of Tre'maine Edmunds, true of Rousseau with his minimal collage experience, true of Elam, and true of Coleman. (I could make an argument it was true of Kincaid, as well). The downside is that sometimes these guys take a year or two to start contributing according to their potential. So it's especially a risk when we've moved out of the 1st so we don't have that cost-controlled 5th year on Coleman. We just have to hope that Coleman follows the Edmunds and Kincaid trajectory where he's an immediate starter and contributor even if he doesn't hit his full potential for a season or two, and not the Rousseau or (shudder) Elam trajectory. Whether or not, clearly Beane thought that risk was manageable in favor of moving up in the 5th McDermott said something once about the position coaches not liking to start rookies because it's more work for them to get the rookies prepared and ready to go; it's more comfortable to start a vet who knows his assignments and correctly interprets what he sees (this was 2020, talking about Ed Oliver, I believe). We've had some "churn" at the coaching assistants, and IMO part of that churn is seeking to move towards guys who are more willing to coach up the younger players and ride with them earlier in the season, in the hopes that they'll have had their growing pains and be ready to ride at the end. I can see both perspectives, but there's a point that if you ride with a vet who is in some ways a "better" player earlier in the season AND more likely to not make it through a full season, you then take a double-hit when you bring in a rookie. If you ride with a rookie and make up your mind to tolerate and correct some rookie mistakes, they're hopefully a better player by the last 3rd of the season AND if they're injured, the vet will be more able to come in with less learning curve. Yeah, I think people are getting it a bit mixed. They're wanting 2 WR because they wanted Coleman and, say, McConkey or maybe Legette and Coleman. Well, that was Either Or Not Both, so then folks are just salty that the Bills talent evaluation and theirs differ. People are mad that the Bills picked Coleman instead of Worthy, Pearsall, Legette, or McConkey. That's just one where time will tell; Beane has shown himself way smarter than a TBD draft afficionado at times. Other times he's shown himself "out" vs the guys TBD would have picked. There are some wild cards at play such as injuries - would Cody Ford have succeeded as a 2nd round pick if he hadn't been injured so much and tried so hard to play through it? Can't use a time machine to find out. Clearly the Bills could have taken Franklin instead of Carter at the bottom of the 3rd, but also clearly, he's a guy where 32 talent evaluators around the league differed significantly from the pundits who graded him as a top-10 WR and a 2nd round or top 50 player. The Bills seemed to want no part of him or of Mitchell. So then what we're talking about is whether there was a guy within reach from the 4th round on with whom we should have double-dipped. We're not talking "the Bills didn't take BTJ and Legette or Worthy. We're talking the Bills didn't take one of the guys in reach at the bottom of the 1st/top of the 2nd AND a guy in the late rounds, and while yes, this draft's WR quality is good, that doesn't mean that the guys drafted in the 5th are automagically better than the guys we drafted or signed last season. That's the bottom line: whether they're right or wrong, the Bills like someone in the Shorter/Shavers/Hamler/Thompson/Isabella group and feel they have a better shot to contribute this season, better than they like Anthony Gould, Ainais Smith, or Jamari Thrash. I will admit Beane pisses me off at times when he talks as though the only way the Bills could have gotten a top WR like Ja'Marr Chase is to "suck that bad", when plainly, there were guys within reach of our original draft slot who have proven to be top WR.

I think the Bills feel the Cole Beasley role may be over-represented on the current roster with Khalil Shakir and the FA acquisition of Curtis Samuel (not that these guys are playing at Cole's level at present, but then, likely neither would McConkey) It's also notable that one reason Beasley and Josh had that success in 2020 was that Brown was a vertical threat and Diggs fast enough to also stretch the field. The weakness of that group, was guys who were strong enough to out-play physical coverage and to challenge for 50-50 balls. I think this is it. In our most recent playoff losses, our WR have 100% been out-physicaled by "sticky" coverage. I think the Bills are trying to become a more physical, powerful team offensively. Whether they've got the right guys for that, time will tell but I can't fault the logic that it's insanity to try the same thing and expect different results, therefore the Bills are going for some different qualities in their player personnel. Aside, but what's super-frustrating to me is after the Zebras allowed KC to hold and shove and mug our WR all game in the AFCCG, the Superbowl crew of Zebras flagged the hell out of KC's secondary for the same behavior, helping Tampa to the win.

OK, that's a careful and fair breakdown. I think you missed Richard Gouraige, whom the Bills carried on the practice squad all season and signed to a futures contract at OT, that's a nit. I also can't argue that it's an uphill battle for an UDFA to break camp on the 53, because it's I think there are 2 places where I differ. First, I don't view David Edwards position at LG as "locked in", nor do I view Connor McGovern as "locked in" at C. In fact, I'm highly nervous about the Connor McGovern Experiment at C. I think he had something like 13 games at C as a college sophomore, and maybe 1 start at C in the NFL? Doesn't mean he can't play C, but he's highly inexperienced and his track record is coaches who see him play C go "Next!". McGovern is a bit shorter, maybe 15 lbs heavier than Morse, came into the league with a rep as a strong run blocker, more uneven in pass pro. I think we saw that at times last season. I think he's got the inside track, but is far from a lock. It wouldn't bother me to keep 3 other guys who can play C on the roster. I have different trepidation about David Edwards as a starter. He can play, but he's also got a very nervous-making concussion history, such that the Rams moved on from him after he started 45 games with them. If an OLman is "all that", teams usually stick with them for years but the Rams let him go. That suggests to me either 1) they viewed him as a player they could and should upgrade on skill OR 2) they saw his concussion as particularly worrisome. Or Both. I agree he has an "inside track" because OL coaches tend to favor "their guys" who can player/coach their technique (one reason Bills nabbed him from LA), but we're in year 3 now with Kromer. The starters now should be "his guys". In the past, the Bills have also valued IOL backups who can play across, sometimes at the expense of a guy who has potential to be significantly better at one position (see Teller, Wyatt vs Bates, Ryan). Edwards did play RG his rookie season, but never C AFAIK. Of course, there are a lot of relevant details here neither of us have access to, I'm just laying out why I view both McGovern as subject to being moved back to LG, and Edwards as being susceptible to upgrade. I don't know how the Bills feel about Alec Anderson - they obviously felt he was better than the guys they released. But while they carried him all year, he didn't make it onto the roster for one tiny snap, not on ST, not as a 6th OL. Of course we were very lucky with our OL health last season, but I don't see him being as much of a "sure bet" as you do. Likewise, while the Bills clearly liked Van Demark better than the guys they released to make room for him, the Bills historically favor a swing tackle as their backup OT and I recall some chatter that Van Demark was not "getting it" at RT. The major reason why I feel the OL may not be quite as "locked in" as you see it has to do with scheme. What exactly does Joe Brady want this offense to be? I don't know, do you? Last year, we went into the season with Dorsey as OC and with an "athletic" type center who excels in a pin-and-pull style run game, and presumably a portfolio of run plays suited to our OL personnel. But with Joe Brady now locked down as OC, I believe there are signs we want to move towards a more power-focused run game. One of them being to release Morse and go with Connor McGovern as the presumptive C. McGovern is a bit shorter, maybe 15 lbs heavier, and came into the league with a rep as a strong run blocker, more uneven in pass pro. I think we saw that at times last season. Will he do better in pass sets as a C vs LG? Not enough NFL experience at C to tell. What exactly does Joe Brady want our offense to look like? In the games where he was OC, we had a huge shift in our Run/Pass balance. We were 58% pass/42% run under Dorsey and 48% pass/52% run under Brady. The big question: Why? Was it because between Allen's shoulder sprain and whatever was up with Diggs, we didn't have the horses to carry off the pass game he wanted so he did what it took to win? Was it because, despite having a certified Beast of a passing QB under C, McDermott really wants a run first offense in his heart of hearts? If we know what Brady wants the offense to look like, then we can make a guess about whether the 4 returning guys plus Edwards really have a sweet lock on the starts and whether Anderson and Van Demark really have a strong leg up on the backup roles.

And Van Demark was actually initially signed by the Colts - but both came over to the Bills prior to their rookie year That's why I count them as UDFA who made the roster; you can count differently, no worries

What would that look like to you?

I don't disagree with this assessment. What I ponder is: what exactly were the Bills supposed to do about it, given where they started the offseason? As you point out, even with some resources expended on lower-tier FA signings, a late 2nd round and a late 3rd round draft pick, it's possible our D won't be as good this season. So were we supposed to use no resources on it, 100% on offense, and have the D just totally blow? That's not likely a recipe for playoffs or playoff success either. More, we all know even a top of the 1st round pick has only about a 40-50% hit rate. So if we mortgage the rest of this year's draft class and next year's to get there, what alternatives does that leave us? That's really what I want to hear from people on Team Unacceptable WR Room: what would be their plan to fix it?

Happy, I Get It. You're Super Extra Salty right now at what the Bills have done. I'm not happy myself, but I do think some perspective is needed. You're letting it warp your assessments here. I'm not saying remember Shorter or count on Shorter, but Zierlein had him as a 5th round WR, whom we drafted with Pick 15 in the 5th round. https://www.nfl.com/prospects/justin-shorter/32005348-4f65-1252-2fb4-216da3af656d. To me, he's a guy who was the top WR prospect in the country coming out of HS and with 2 different programs, couldn't quite make it work at the collegiate level. AND, he's struggled with hammy injuries, same as what put him on IR all last season. I think the Bills believe Coleman is their #2, and their #1 is a combo of Shakir and Samuel - don't forget they did make that addition. Whether that's tenable or not, Time Will Tell. I do think that the Bills were looking at the guys they have as developing WR when they were getting into the 5th round of this year's draft, and said "no one we like better than the guys stashed at home". That's not saying the guys we had stashed have a very good chance of contributing, but the same is true of a WR drafted this year in the 5th round or later.

Receipts: what was your take on Josh Allen, Matt Milano, and Terrel Bernard?

We did give him guaranteed money, but it's not such a large amount we couldn't move on without flinching (by NFL standards) - $1.5M or so

List I gave is only guys who signed to the 53 and were active 1 or more games

Oh, wow, I disagree - After cutting Morse and moving McGovern to center and backup David Edwards to G, I thought we were thin on IOL And then of course there was Ryan Van Demark as the swing tackle The draftees were late rounders, so I guess the UDFA feel they can compete? I think 11 or so I assume you mean guys who came to the Bills as rookies and signed to the active roster here, not UDFA that developed elsewhere like Mario Williams or Kumerow From 2019 to 2023: Ryan Bates (he initially signed to Steelers but came here as a rook) Reggie Gilliam Quintin Morris Ryan Van Demark Antonio Williams CJ Brewer Tyrel Dodson Prince Emili Ja'Marcus Ingram Kingsley Jonathan Cam Lewis Fundamentally looks like 2 per year or so Mostly sign to practice squad and get elevated fora few games their 1st year Edit: Dang, I missed Alec Anderson, who was on the 53 but never active in a game. That means I probably missed a couple more

Been here far longer than you, yung'un - at least under your current screen name. You were saying "nobody thinks they know more than an actual NFL front office. " My point was, on this message board (which is one of the better around the league as far as I've found) - sure they do.

No, it's not the same thing, but I think a person could make a legit case that McCaffery is the player on the 49ers that is most responsible for keeping opposing DCs awake late. > 2000 Yds from scrimmage in a single season will do that. 2nd place would probably be Deebo Samuel.

I'm not sure the Ravens are a good example. They're one of three NFL teams (two very successful) who have more rush attempts than pass attempts. In fact, the Ravens were #30 in the league for passing attempts. The other two are the SF49'ers (#32 for passing attempts) and the Bears were #27. So a team can be successful in the NFL that way, obviously, but can they be a successful, high powered passing offense that way? The 49'ers legitimately were - #4 for passing yards despite #32 for passing attempts. The Ravens, not so much - bottom 3rd of the league. The 49ers do spread it around pretty well, but I would argue that Aiyuk with 105 targets is their #1. Still they had 4 guys with >80 targets, so maybe they kind of make your case - I think defenses are far more scared of Christian McCaffery than they are of Aiyuk. I would still argue on the Ravens, low-powered as their passing offense was, Zay Flowers was the #1. He had 40% more targets and more than twice the receptions of anyone else.

Let's just say that there appears to be no functional difference between some of the stuff people have posted in the last 4 days, and the posts someone who thought they know more than an actual NFL front office might make.

Well, now. I can't say as I've gone and counted them all, but I have a pretty damned healthy ignore list nowadays - and I've still been overwhelmed by the amount of unreasonable, name-calling, insult-slinging, frothing at the mouth disparaging posts. There are some negative posts that are IMO reasonable critiques and fair points well made. I wouldn't give them a majority, much less an overwhelming one, but as I admit, I haven't actually gone and counted them all. There are actually some guys here who take their mock drafts incredibly seriously. They watch every game they can get their hands on, take notes, make grades, compare grades, go back and review. So they definitely put a lot more effort into it than looking at mocks and watching some Youtube highlights. I'm impressed, year after year. They still don't have access to a fraction of the game information the scouts do - the gps data, the coaches film, etc etc.

LOL. A few years back I wanted to know what the hit rate of various sportwriters actually was I couldn't find most of their grades or mocks online. They not only lack the professional accountability that professional scouts have - they actively hide their work from people who might want to check them 3 or 5 years down the road. Anyway, the foaming at the mouth, gnashing of teeth, and beating of breasts about WR this draft does in fact remind me of the foaming at the mouth which occurred after Josh was drafted, and really didn't let up for about 3 1/2 years (mid-season 2020)

Good find. Hopefully the Bills WR room will work overtime to help him improve But, the bottom line I take from this is that drafting him did NOT add the vertical threat we've been lacking