JohnNord

No one really knows. Beane, McDermott and Allen all spoke of taking less hits in training camp last year. Ken Dorsey defenders want you to believe he wasn’t allowed run plays for Allen and Brady was.

It likely wouldn’t make a difference. He fully supports Sean McDermott.

I respect how Ralph brought football to WNY and his philanthropy to the area, but man, the organization was such a joke under his ownership for the final decade of his tenure. Out of all the factors for “the drought” Ralph was reason #1. The people he enabled to be leaders and decision makers after Donahue were horrendous choices - namely Marv, Russ, and Buddy Nix. None were qualified for that role and the results served as evidence. The football product did get marginally better when Doug Whaley took over but also got worse in other areas as well The loss was a bad one but it was mostly inconsequential to the season - much like the Hail Murray loss

He was unreliable toward the end of last season but not a compete train wreck. It would have been a drastic move to cut him in the middle of the year. Bass is in the as Diggs was. Signed to an extension at an in opportune time. The reason they aren’t bringing in completion is his contract. They are looking at a $4M dead cap hit on a kicker, on top of an already bad cap year. They are going to give him every chance to succeed before making moves. My concern is that once kickers start to get shaky, it doesn’t seem like they are able to regain their old form. They actually have a kicker on the team in Jack Browning who kicked and punted in college

Id say a B+. I think that overall the results aren’t there for “A” but he’s done a better job than a “B.” I’d probably give McDermott the same grade. Overall he’s managed the cap well, though a few bad contracts have hurt the team (Diggs, Star etc). He hit on the most important draft pick in Allen and deserves a ton of credit for that. I’d agree with the sentiment that he’s he needs to hit more “Home Runs” w/ draft as opposed to his usual singles.

It all depends on what your definition of a “bust” is. It wasn’t a complete disaster of a pick but overall I think it’s fair to say he fell well short of expectation on every team that counted on him. He was disappointing on the Bills, Rams and Chiefs - his one saving grace was making a big catch in the SB though that hardly redeems his career. Like you said, he was touted to be a top WR coming out of college and a “generational” player. Instead his ceiling proved to be a high-end WR2, despite having a ton of potential. Injuries are only part of the story - he just never had the drive to be great.

He was good in the XFL too….Spring Football legend

It says 5 years….not weeks months! He’s a vet who decided to skip to OTA’s. He’s be back for mandatory minicamp.

For me, it’s Bobby Babich. If you look at his track record he’s always had success with whatever position group he’s been in charge of. You can tell he’s a smart and thoughtful coach from his interviews and it seems like players really enjoy playing for him. I’m guessing he’ll call plays with McDermott gradually giving him more autonomy. I don’t expect this transition to be perfect as a first time play caller but I think there’s a lot of promising evidence in his background. I also think the fact that Daboll went after him (along with Miami and a few others) speaks to his potential as well. He’s also younger, more charismatic and articulate than McDermott is. So I’m thinking this will make him more relatable to players. Looking forward to what he does at DC

You can only read into OTA’s so much. It’s totally different once the pads come on. Also I believe the media has only been to practice on two days over the past two weeks. So the sample size here is very small. With that being said, the lack of high end talent at WR this season has is one of my biggest concerns

The one player who consistently lets down in games against good competition is Ed Oliver. He was a monster playing against Pittsburgh’s poor OL but just invisible when playing against KC’s strong interior. You can say the same thing in a playoff loss against Cincy. I know Oliver was banged up but so was the entire Bengals OL.

Long story short….growing up in Buffalo it was a fandom handed down to me from my family/community But more specifically what drew me in was the 1988 season when the Bills were good for the first time that I could remember. People in Buffalo were very excited about the team. The playoff win against Houston was one of the first games I can remember really looking forward to. So many superstars on the team and nearly a decade of sustained success.

The OTA reports were that the Bills were giving UDFA Jack Browning a lot of work holding with Bass and he was successful on all of his FG’s including a 70 yarder. I think he has a legit chance to unseat Martin who faded badly last season and held during one of Bass’s worst seasons

LOL…after lax he played 3 years of college football I don’t know… I don’t think there’s as much of a chance or a precedence that you do - especially trying to win a PS squad on the DT with the Bills. But we’ll see

5 out of the hundreds of thousands of NFL players over the past few decades is a good amount? Even 5 of the IEP players you referenced since 2017 is hardly a good amount. His chances are highly unlikely. The one variance is that I can’t remember the last time a Gold Medalist played in the NFL - especially in a physical sport like wrestling. He’s literally one of the best athletes in the world

I wouldn’t say “a good amount.” There have been a few but they are mostly outliers. Off the top of my head here’s who I can think of: - Carlton Hasslerig (wrestling) - Stephen Neal (wrestling) - Jordan Mailita (rugby) - Antonio Gates (basketball) - a handful of punters & kickers That’s about it… it HAS happened but still remains extremely unlikely.

Everyone is saying practice squad but we’ve seen the Bills activate the PS DT’s over the past few years. I think it’s going to hard for him to even get a shot on the PS.

Do we know he’s playing DL?

This is a like a meta joke one of the beat reports would make when talking about McDermott! Gold medal or not - it doesn’t look like he has any football experience, so I would put the odds of him making the team among the steepest out of any camp body. Funny because on the latest podcast, Sal theorized that Matt Haack might make the team as the KOS given the new rules. There goes that idea!

Waddle is good but there’s no way he deserves Top 5 money.

IMO Beane, McDermott (and Daboll) don’t get enough credit for selecting Josh and putting in a plan to support and develop him as a QB. While he had a lot of physical traits and intangible, the majority of draft pundits had predicted he’d bust. Given the track record of the decision makers during the drought, they’re probably a decent chance that Josh turn out to be Kyle Boller, Jake Locker or Paxton Lynch

Injuries are a part of the game and always have a major impact on the end result of the NFL season. It’s not logical to assume that team is going to be at full strength. Thats like saying Kansas City shouldn’t be SB Champs because they beat the Bills without Milano, Bernard or Tre White

It’s a good point. When you finish in first place the schedule is never easy. But assuming all of the teams who were good in ‘23 will be good in ‘24 is not accurate. So much can change during the season with injuries and unexpected roster moves etc. We should have a better idea of the difficult of the schedule by midseason

I get what you are saying - just concerned that the Bills didn’t do enough at WR. Like you said we’ll have to wait and see what happens

Everyone always says how brutal the schedule is when it’s first released. In May a first place schedule always looks so much harder than it is in actuality. People said the same exact thing last season.