Beck Water

First of all, no one is calling Houston "crap". Everyone here recognizes they've got an excellent-looking young QB and are a team on the rise. They could be the 2020 Bills. Second, "every time a guy leaves"? Nonsense. We wished Jerry Hughes and Singletary well, going to the Texans. Wished Moss well with the Colts. McKenzie got dunked on, but then he got dunked on while he was here, no one dunked on the Colts. Edmunds - mixed reactions mostly "not worth that contract" followed by "but who we got at MLB?" Hodgins - rampant and disproportionate nostalgia. Beasley - gratitude for what he'd done for the team and Josh, mixed reactions between people who thought he'd been "done wrong" for his personal views and people who thought he was "done" and it was time. Tre' White - tears. Gabe Davis and Mitch Morse - total respect. And don't get me started on Wyatt Teller. You're either not being truthful to us, or not truthful to yourself.

So some pundits are already re-evaluating after Houston re-tooled the contract https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2024/4/5/24121898/stefon-diggs-trade-houston-texans-cj-stroud-buffalo-bills The article goes on to analyze Digg's usage and results during the 2023 Bills season - recommend giving it a read.

Yeah, the only current Bill I've seen respond to him is Dawkins, and that response was...somewhat ambiguous

I don't think this was correct last season. It was correct in 2020 and 2021. I think the Bills saw a lot of man coverage, and a lot of hybrid coverage (1 side man, 1 side zone)

It's Capology. When we traded for Diggs, we had a QB on a rookie contract and an improved WR corps where trying "#1 by committee" had fallen short. We needed to draft and develop, or sign, a #1 talent. It made sense to spend some of the cap money we had due to cheap QB, LT, and #1 CB contracts on a canny vet WR who could help develop our QB. Now, we're paying our QB, an aging DE who hasn't given us ROI to date, LT, LB, DT and we'll probably pick up Rousseau's 5th year option. It doesn't make sense to pick up a huge WR contract.

How have Buscaglia's past predictions worked out?

Oh, Jeesh. Made me look, and I wish I hadn't. Nothing against Beasley welcoming Diggs to Texas or praising him as a hard workin 'Dog' Dawkins "Till next time" but that look in the 4th picture he chose!!!!!

You know, there are ways to exorcise your spleen, and there are ways to hold a guy accountable in a meaningful and effective way. When a guy is really down on himself at the end of the game, if you say something to him that leads to the response "it's only one ***** game!" and a wave-off, I think it's a safe bet you're doing the former - taking a shot, to vent your own spleen. Effectively holding a guy accountable does not look like that. No one in that locker room, including Josh, including the stream of players Graham reports as coming up to give Josh encouragement, thought Josh played a good enough game. He also targeted Diggs 13 times for 103 yds, and one of his interceptions was on a target to Diggs (4 on the year targeting Diggs, 6 targeting Davis). And we still took the game to overtime, where if we hadn't given up a punt return TD maybe we could have won it.

I dunno. People said stuff about Diggs being an idiot to force his way out of Minnesota where he had a very consistent, 69% 70% completion QB throwing to him, to go to Buffalo where he had that young Wild Thing Josh Allen, who couldn't break 59% completion in 2 seasons and wasn't even passing for 200 ypg. Of course, Josh worked hard on himself to totally re-work his passing motion that off season, and when the receivers got together during Covid, all of them said "you can tell he's been in the lab" (Singletary) "Josh is making throws he wouldn't try last season" (Beasley) and Diggs just thought it was fine. So clearly any narrative around "Diggs made Josh what he is", based on Josh's jump in completion %, doesn't have the full picture. I'm just still puzzled by the difference in opinion between Cosell, who watches tape compulsively and says definitively that Diggs is not a #1 WR at this point and he's not going to the Texans to be a #1 WR (and he's said previously the Bills don't have an elite receiver, they have a single, good receiver - so this isn't something he made up at the Bills urging after the trade) vs. the Texans giving him an extra $3.5M that, IIRC, was not fully guaranteed on his contract, it guaranteed at the start of the next league year, and all the pundits expressing doubt that Nico Collins is a #1 receiver.

I hope Beane learned something the year he "double dipped" at DE after announcing post 2020 season that "we couldn't affect the QB". So he took Greg Rousseau, who was a high-ceiling, low floor guy due to limited playing experience in college, and Boogie Basham, who was supposed to be a solid floor but higher ceiling guy - but who played at a lower level of competition at Wake Forest. In hindsight, I think Beane was reaching, In the end, we may get more value (and certainly more ROI) out of 2022 UDFA Kingsley Jonathan, and we missed on some players who could have helped us. I don't think Beane has a problem putting more young WR in the room. Khalil is a 3rd year guy now; he's got vet Curtis Samuel and vet Mack Hollins who both know how to get through a season. But I hope he's more likely to do what he did with Elam and Benford - draft a guy they like early, and double-dip by taking a shot at potential late in the draft.

It's a fair point, along with the point someone else made that Diggs "leverage", after his salary was fully guaranteed, was simply telling any team he didn't want to be traded to that he wouldn't report until contractually forced. No one wants that, especially, as you point out, that an unhappy Diggs can be a passive aggressive PITA.

Samuel and Davis are very different players. Davis was trying to be that Boundary Guy and he really didn't get it done when asked to be that clever route runner over the middle. Samuel had his best year, with Joe Brady, playing something like 70+% of his snaps from the slot. I think a more realistic hope is that he'll be the Beasley replacement Crowder and McKenzie were supposed to be. I really like how Shakir came on last year and how Kincaid looked as a rookie - so smooth! But I think it's a long stretch to think Kincaid can replace Diggs. But with all respect, here's the thing: I think this "Jenga Game" with WR where the Bills (not just you) look at WR and argue something like "Davis sure looked All World in the playoffs against the Colts in 2020 and against KC in 2021. And McKenzie has been stuck behind Beasley on the depth chart, but he seized his opportunity and showed what he could do against NWE and earlier against the Dolphins. So we don't need to "splash" in FA or in the draft this year. We project from what guys can do in an occasional game or while the D is focused on someone else. The Bills seem to do this, too. It doesn't necessarily work that way, though.

It's a valid point that once the league year passed the point of guaranteeing Diggs $18.5M, he acquired that leverage. I don't remember the point at which a player can be penalized for "failure to report", though I remember thinking it was surprisingly lenient. But then, we all saw DeSean Watson getting paid to sit on the bench and not play for one entire season by the Texans.

It's an interesting point. One of the things I found interesting about the Speak! segment talking about Diggs, was someone - Emmanuel Acho? talking about the importance of "freakazoids". He said almost every team in the NFL has about 3, the 49rs have 6, and you can practice hard and prepare well and play hard but if you don't have enough "freakazoids" you know you're going to lose because you don't have enough talent. So who are the Bills' "freakazoids"? Obviously, Josh Allen is one. Diggs was one - Houston is treating him like one - Cosell thinks he's not or no longer one. Does Cook have "freakazoid" potential? Does Kinkaid? On Defense, who? Ed Oliver? Matt Milano? Tre White at his best was a "freakazoid", as was "all-pro Po" Obviously, the highest probability of landing a "freakazoid" is at the top of the 1st round, but all top of the 1st round picks don't become "freakazoids", and "freakazoids" can be found in every round. I think to get "over the hump" we truly need at least one more "freakazoid" on each side of the ball.

I don't like going into the draft with the mandate that we MUST come out with wide receiving firepower. Edmunds who? It's true that I thought the Bills D would not be as good because I, unlike Beane and McDermott, did not perceive that a 3rd round draft pick who played 111 defensive snaps in his rookie season, who looked rather "lost in space" in his only start, and who kind of looks like a twig (relatively speaking), would turn out to be a high-level defensive diagnostician and a hit-stick monster when tackling. It's also true that Shakir really came on last season and looks fully ready to embrace a larger role, as was also true of Kincaid. I suppose the difference is that I believe Beane and McDermott generally know what they're doing when it comes to evaluating and developing defensive talent and using what they have. I lack the same faith in their assessment and development of offensive talent. They had to spend 2 3rd round and a 2nd round pick at RB before getting one who looks pretty good. Shakir in the the 5th round looks good, but he's not Puka Nacua. I think they may need to take several shots in a couple drafts to replace Diggs. At least, that's my concern.

I think the reason for my response is clear to the astute reader - Mr " I'll play the fool for now. Just saying that there's plenty of info at anyone's disposal to put together a more accurate assessment. People at large prefer the emotional approach however. Which is fine. Again, nothing we say here changes anything. Some simply see beyond the superficial."

I mean, it's both. It's called "dead cap" because it's a charge on the team's cap from a player whose contract is "dead" because the player is gone. But it's also true that it's there because it represents money previously paid and amortized across the length of the contract.

I am not happy this happened. I think the Bills got objectively worse - I think Beane knows it. What may also be true is that it may have needed to happen. It's possible the relationship between Allen and Diggs was irrevokably broken, and that the reason it looked at times last season as though they just weren't on the same page, is because .... they weren't, and they weren't gonna get there. A lot of players are allowed to seek trades, but that doesn't mean they'll find one, or that their team will accept what the player finds. Example, Beasley was "given permission to seek a trade", but he didn't find one and was cut.

Let me re-frame this: Why do you think it was Diggs who chose the Texans? Do you believe another team offered more and was rejected? Which brings up the follow-on question: If that's true, what was the leverage Diggs possessed that allowed him to choose? Did Diggs have a trade approval clause in his contract?

The first part of this is actually true. From the game Brady took over (NYJ), Diggs had 349 reg season yards on 63 targets, while Shakir had 363 yds on 24 targets. That would be the last 7 games. I look at that because it's an objective break point (changing OCs)

Graham is being a little disingenuous here. The only game I can find where Sherfield played more offensive snaps was Dallas, and that was clearly because the Bills came in with a game plan to run all over Dallas and Sherfield >> Diggs at run blocking.

Many football games turn on a small number of plays, including defensive plays. Let's take defensive plays out of every game then. There was a lot going on after Brady took over, including an apparent determination to demonstrate that the Bills had a run game beyond Josh Allen No offense (see what I did there?) but your track record doesn't position you as a font of perceptive football wisdom who, unlike the rest of us peons, can see beyond the superficial, overcome any emotion, and provide more accurate assessments. If people don't choose to engage with you, it's not because you're somehow wiser, it's because it's not satisfying to attempt discussion with someone who will argue vehemently for one POV, flips his stance when it suits him, and postures about how superior he is.

It's very much not uncommon for a traded player to re-work his contract just after a trade, sure. Sometimes it's for the benefit of the trade partner, sometimes it's to reconcile the traded player to the trade, like the Bills did with McCoy. Diggs re-work was 100% in Diggs' interest, of course. I'm just wondering exactly what leverage Diggs had, to accomplish that? There's an enormous divide between some on-line pundits (Steven A Smith, McAfee, some of the Speak crew) who perceive Diggs as going to Denver to be a #1 WR And tape gurus like Cosell who say "he's not a #1 WR at this point in his career". The contract re-work says that Houston votes with the former. So then we have tid-bits like Josh Norman saying "Diggs is taking himself out" - was it Diggs choice that he had lower snap counts towards the end of the season (of course pay no attention to stuff like "Sherfield had more", the only game that was true was vs. Dallas where the Bills only passed 15 times and the game plan was clearly to run over Dallas) Or Devin McCourty saying "it looks like the Bills are trying to win without him" (meaning from his perception, the Bills game plan was 'taking Diggs out') Is Cosell mis-perceiving a game plan that moved away from Diggs, for Diggs skills declining? That seems possible, but unlikely to me.

You have a point that the score at the end is the only thing that matters. From that POV, at the point in the season where Dorsey got fired after the Week 10 loss to Denver, the Bills were 5-5 At the end of the season, they were 11-6. That means the score at the end says they went 6-1 after Brady took over.

FWIW I was watching "Tim Graham and Friends" podcast last night, and he recounted talking to Devin McCourty (now an analyst with NBC) prior to the Miami game. McCourty, of course, watched 3 years of film with the goal of stopping Diggs 2 (or more) times a season. According to Graham, McCourty said "it looks like they're trying to prove they can win without him" (Diggs)