vtnatefootball11

I generally agree with all of this. The biggest leverage Cook has is hurting the Bills this upcoming season by sitting out. Davis would be a huge drop-off, his ceiling is very limited, and frankly we should never go into a season with Davis as the RB1 or even the RB1b. Ty Johnson has produced at every opportunity though and I would be curious to see his numbers if he got every opportunity Cook got last year (plus still remaining the third down back). Johnson as the primary, with Davis and an explosive mid round rookie as depth would be very intriguing to me, and I would guess the combined production would look similar to Cook last year. My biggest concern though, despite not wanting to pay Cook $15m+, is the he is our biggest weapon outside of Allen. Cook is not elite but he's the only guy on our offense that even remotely scare you. Shakir is very solid but nobody is having to gameplan for him. This is where Beane has failed in not brining in an explosive top end receiver, year after year after year. Even with diggs we constantly should have been searching for an explosive high end #2 project at WR in the draft. That's on Beane for discounting the position.

Cook is very good but safely not elite. Elite players don't come off on the field on third down, period. Mostert had over 20 touchdowns but that doesn't make him elite. TDs are often very situational. If we give Davis/Johnson got more goal line carries Cook would have had closer to 10 tds last year. Never pay a guy coming off an obvious outsized production year. Look what we did with Knox, absolutely terrible contract, worst of Beane's tenure (Von was not a good contract, very risky but absent the injury it prob would have been fine). Cook is good and has improved, and that's what difficult is some of the crazy production last year was him truly improving and ascending, but not all of it. I would very much like to keep him but not at anything more than $12m per (unless it's very short term). You have to remember that Cook benefits greatly from Allen and our Oline. Arron Jones is a great comp. He has similar skills/style to Cook, and look he had one year at 16tds and has never come close to that TD production since. Beane is being smart by holding strong here, Cook is not Saquon Barkley.

Can't believe all the complainers here that are "outraged" over this. The NFL is the most popular sport in America, and has one of the best products in the world. This is not debatable. Of course they are going to try and maximize value. If the Bills play (or heck even if they don't) every single one of you will still be watching, to act otherwise is ridiculous. Get over yourself and pay $10 for a month of streaming. Just thank the Lord we still have football for the time being. The only people I feel bad for are people that have to work on Christmas.

Hahha okay buddy

Love how you are cherry picking the stats. 15.1 YPR in the playoffs sure, when you include a couple big plays that enlarge the averages and include sweeps ands screens with run after the catch etc., but are those really "catches"?? Look at Worthy's average depth of target for all of 2024, 9.1 yards which is very low compared to WRs league wide. Keon had 15.2, almost double!!! His targets were a lot harder to catch, were further down the filed by a wide margin. Worthy should have had more avg distance considering he ran plenty of fly/go routes on deep shots, he has no intermediate game and is not a complete receiver. Actually watch the game film my man, and I mean all of his routes, not just the highlights and cherry picked stats. Sure, you have to watch him on the gadget play and respect his speed deep but he's not good enough at the receiver position yet to be on the field full time, even in Reid's offense, maybe he will get there but the odds say no. This has nothing to do with Coleman, who knows where his development will go. https://www.rotowire.com/football/player/xavier-worthy-17687 https://www.rotowire.com/football/player/keon-coleman-17732

I never said I'd rather have Keon or that Keon is better, I was responding to your point that Keon never could have caught 19 balls in the playoffs (sure he could, if he was force fed like Worthy was on a squad with depleted receivers, that was my point, any NFL receiver can do that if force fed). Worthy was definitely better than Keon his rookie year and way more explosive, nobody is hating on him and nobody said they would rather have Keon. My point is he is still more of a gadget guy for Reid to scheme up than a bonafide starting WR. Rice and Holywood Brown will be the leading receivers, I'm sure Worthy will eat up designed screens and sweeps and short passes and have some explosive plays, but he doesn't scare anyone as a pure receiver.

Worthy looks nothing like Desean Jackson. Jackson looked like the best player on the field even early on in his career, Worthy looks like he's being forced the ball a few times a game on designed plays. I will admit he has more in him than JUST a "gadget guy" but he is much closer to a gadget guy than Desean Jackson. Chiefs receiving corp was a mess heading into the playoffs, and Kelce is not nearly what he used to be. Keon easily could have been forced fed 19 receptions. You are forgetting Worthy is getting a few "catches" a game on designed sweep/screens. He didn't catch a lot of balls that weren't designed to him. He's a useful NFL player with blazing speed but I haven't seen anything that tells me he's a WR1/2.

Could not agree more with your overall sentiment (other than the Worthy reference you are off the mark there he has shown nothing but gadget ability and that's with Andy Reid scheming specific plays for him every game). We keep missing on good wide receivers, there are drafts where safe studs are there but we trade up for someone else (see Elam and Kincaid drafts) or we sit back and do nothing like last year when Brian Thomas Jr is sitting there just a couple picks in front of us!! Criminal on Beanes end. If he had Flowers and Thomas Jr. in the same grouping as Coleman and Kincaid that is flat out malpractice. Yes, some contracts have a void year to spread out hit. They report 1 year at $2 mil but really there is void second year so the actual cap hit is $1.3m year 1 and $0.7m the void year after the leave. Pretty sure that was reported with Hamlin's deal, assuming Gilliam was the same.

Yes, this. I just don't see Stef being humble enough to eat crow and apologize, agree he won't throw fits if he doesn't get the ball a lot etc, that just isn't in Stef's nature and I think the Bills would be wary even if he was saying that stuff. The Bills are sorely missing a difference maker at receiver, that much is irrefutable, but Allen also played much more free and forced way less with Diggs out of the picture. We have limited resources to allocate, and we can't take the risk that he causes locker room issues again. Allen is in a good head space and the locker room is in a great place, dont' risk f ing that up.

I agree on the DL theme and it's great that there are more targets as that increases our chances of adding an elite piece, but Landry ain't that. He's a very good player, and even underrated league wide you could argue, but he's not a difference maker, game wrecker type like Garrett or Hendrickson. Let's use all the available DL options to drive the price down on Garrett!

He hasn't quite lived up to the lofty expectations of #1 overall but to call him the "bust of the century" or even a "bust" is crazy. Kirk thrived with Lawrence prior to last year and Engram caught over 100 balls in 2024. Brian Thomas Jr. seemed to do just fine with Lawrence too. Gabe Davis a replacement level player who they overpaid thanks to JA17 making him look good, and are now stuck with for another year. Gabe Davis isn't a part of their long term plans

This puts a little more pressure on Cincy to sign Hendrickson, they may end up locking him up after all. That would leave Crosby and Hendrickson now off the trade market, and reduces some options for the Bills a bit if they were looking to make a big move on the DL. May increase the asking price for Garrett slightly too.

No freaking way you get Higgins for $20million, he's gonna be close to $30 million per. Trading a 4th or 5th for Kupp and renegotiating his contract to get him in the $10mil range for the next two years with maybe $15mil of the 20 total guaranteed would be a huge win for us. Kupp is only guaranteed $5mil this year and none in 2026 so he may be willing to to do something like that for a contender. Even at 32, would be the best WR on our team by far and is a team first guy, it's a no brainer if compensation is minimal and he's willing to play ball on the contact.

Look I don't agree with the OP's take, it wasn't well thought out and you can certainly pick apart his argument. But he does have a point about this board being overly sensitive to any criticism, especially pertaining to McDermott. It was a similar thing with Diggs too, anyone who dare suggested something was seriously wrong last year and that his time was over was made out to be deranged... Let's just say that didn't age well for most on this board. Be willing to put aside your homerism for a second and embrace a critical eye, we are all Bills fans here.