Rampant Buffalo

I see two ways for Curtis Samuel to justify his contract: 1) He's a good player at Z receiver. 2) He's a significant and noticeable upgrade over Shakir in the slot. In either of those scenarios, you feel justified in giving Samuel the contract you gave him. If Samuel is playing mostly slot, that means his playing time is coming at the expense of Shakir. So, by adding one good player, you're sending another good player to the bench. Unless Samuel is giving you a significant upgrade over Shakir, why use a decent amount of cap money on something like that? There were so many other ways that cap money could have been used. As for Beane's comments: if I had to guess, I'd say he wanted to leave Samuel's usage up to the offensive coaching staff. So, he was deliberately vague, with the intention of letting the offensive coaches use Samuel however they like. As for the 25/75 split you mentioned, that's kind of depressing. But if the Washington Cobra Commanders had great outside receivers and a lack of guys for the slot, maybe that would push Samuel into the slot. If Samuel did a great job with the 25% of snaps he took from the outside, that would certainly be encouraging.

You inadvertently hit a bit of a sore spot. Going into the draft, my guy was Ladd McConkey. He is exceptional at running routes and getting open. Really top notch. Also, McConkey gives you a 4.3 40, pretty good size, and great hands. I would have been thrilled to see him become a Bill. But, I acknowledge there are aspects of Coleman as a prospect which are better than McConkey. Coleman is outstanding at defeating press coverage, and he's great at making contested catches--neither of which is true for McConkey. Also the Bills had a need for an X receiver. McConkey is a Z, Coleman is an X. As for Diggs: we might very well miss his contributions in September and October. We will not miss his contributions in the playoffs. There is nothing for us to miss.

First off, I agree with you on Shakir. He is strictly a slot WR, and I don't see him as a contributor on the outside. That said, I like Shakir as a slot. He may not have Cole Beasley's route running ability, but at least his catch percentage is refreshingly high. If you have someone like Shakir in the slot, you don't need to spend big bucks on some other slot receiver. But, the Bills spent some decent cash on Curtis Samuel. If, like Shakir, Samuel is also strictly a slot, then signing him was a mistake. Giving Samuel the contract he got makes sense only if he can be productive as a Z receiver. With the Bills' cap situation, they simply don't have the luxury of giving out Curtis Samuel type contracts for the purpose of having a redundancy of slot receivers. I don't think Beane is going to automatically write off the Curtis Samuel signing as a failure, before he's taken a single snap in a Bills uniform. Instead, I expect him to be given the opportunity to show what he can do, as a Z receiver. If he doesn't achieve much in that role, then maybe Beane picks up the phone and asks about what it would take to acquire Hopkins. As for Coleman: my understanding is that he only has two years of football experience. I expect him to improve upon his biggest weakness (route running and gaining separation). That improvement might not happen right away, and I expect him to be a better player in week 17 than he is in week 1. If you need a guy to carry you through the first half of the season while Coleman learns, I'd be fine using some resources on that. Some. But not necessarily the type of resources you'd need to acquire and keep Hopkins.

If you're trading for Hopkins, then that means you're taking playing time away from one of your top three receivers. (Coleman, Samuel, or Shakir.) Waiting until close to the trade deadline does two things. 1) It lessens the cap hit, as you mentioned. 2) It allows you to see what you have or don't have in your top 3, before deciding whether to make that trade. If all three of Coleman, Samuel, and Shakir play at or above expectations, then maybe you decide that the cap space and draft capital you'd lose by acquiring Hopkins could better be used elsewhere.

A professional poker player will have played many thousands of hands of poker, and will have had good results, on average. The environment of professional poker is very good at weeding out everyone except the highly competent. It's a ruthless, highly Darwinian environment. A highly skilled player will almost always be able to elbow aside a less skilled player. And in turn be elbowed aside by someone even more highly skilled. The same is not necessarily true of NFL front offices. When Buddy Nix was retiring, the one candidate the Bills seriously considered for his successor was Doug Whaley. Others might have had more natural aptitude for the position, but hadn't built Doug Whaley's connections. Doug Whaley and his scouts worked incredibly long hours. But they were not subjected to the same ruthless, Darwinian environment as professional poker players. A typical GM gets seven picks per draft, which is analogous to a poker player playing seven hands of poker per year. Moreover, not much is expected from day 3 picks. Also, it takes several years to evaluate draft picks. Bad GMs are weeded out much more slowly than bad poker players. If a front office guy worked 20 hours a week, he'd be weeded out quickly, because the length of a workweek is easily measured. But if a front office guy makes bad draft picks, it will probably take years for him to get weeded out. That's why during the playoff drought, the Bills saw first round picks like Aaron Maybin, Donte Whitner, John McCargo, J.P. Losman, E.J. Manuel, etc.

First off, it was not my intention to personally attack you. If that's how my earlier post came across, I apologize. That said, knowledge is not a substitute for insight. People with excessive amounts of knowledge can sometimes make worse decisions than those who have some knowledge, but who are not subject matter experts. Why? There are times when one key piece of knowledge is what's necessary to make the right decision. A highly intelligent and insightful person, who also has a lot of knowledge, will often grasp that one key piece of information. Now imagine a different person who isn't necessarily as clear a thinker, but who has also accumulated vast amounts of knowledge. This vast pile of knowledge is like a haystack, and the person in question must decide which parts of the haystack are the needles. When the Bills drafted E.J. Manuel, Doug Whaley was very pleased. Very excited about Manuel. One of the things Whaley was most pleased by was that when Manuel walked into a room, he exuded a commanding presence. Also, Manuel had done well in his interviews with the Bills. Whaley had a lot of knowledge about Manuel that I didn't have. But, when I watched Manuel's highlight videos, there was nothing there. No special passes. Pretty much every pass I saw was something which could have been done by an average college QB. That was the needle. For Whaley, that needle got lost in his haystack of other knowledge about Manuel.

I hadn't been aware of Johnson's high sack totals when he was with the Jacksonville Jaguars. I agree with you that that should have been a major red flag. Also small sample size, as you said. The Bills were in a bit of a desperate situation when they traded for Johnson. Todd Collins had turned out not to be Jim Kelly's successor, and Billy Joe Hobart wasn't the answer either. Even prior to Johnson's arrival, the Bills already had a great defense. So they had to do something at quarterback to try to level up the offense. Desperate people sometimes do desperate things. Maybe the Bills told themselves, "The good things we saw from Johnson in Jacksonville? Those were for real. But the bad things we saw, such as the high sack rate? Small sample size." That's desperate person type thinking. But still, the Bills must have had some uncertainty about Johnson. So they bring in a guy like Flutie. Flutie had started off in the NFL, then washed out. He then had a great career in the CFL, including three Grey Cups. But he had a chip on his shoulder, and wanted to prove he belonged in the NFL as a starter. He only had a couple years or so to do this, before father time caught up with him. Adding Doug Flutie and Rob Johnson to the team at the same time was a recipe for a QB controversy. Rob Johnson made the OL look worse than it actually was; while Flutie made the OL look better than it was. If I had the Cowboys' OL of the mid '90s, I'd take Johnson over Flutie. Johnson was the better passer when given good protection, especially on intermediate to deep passes. But with a backup caliber OL, such as the OL the Bills had in the late '90s, maybe you take Flutie over Johnson. There is also a third possibility, which pretty much no one is going to agree with me on. The Bills OL played better in the second half of games, and typically started looking pretty decent halfway through the third quarter. So why not play Flutie for the first half of every game, and maybe the first drive of the third quarter. Then put Johnson in for the rest of the game. A defense is typically going to prepare for one or the other of those QBs, so you punish them for whichever one they didn't prepare for. Moreover, you're taking advantage of Flutie's best attribute (making the OL look better than it is), when you need that attribute the most. You're also taking advantage of Johnson's best attribute (good intermediate to deep passing) when there may be the pass protection necessary for that attribute to matter.

Let's look at the NFL's dynasty teams. By "dynasty" I mean at least 3 Super Bowl wins with at least some core players overlapping between Super Bowl wins. 1970s. Steelers. 4 Super Bowl wins. 1980s. 49ers. 4 Super Bowl wins. 1990s. Dallas Cowboys. 3 Super Bowl wins. 2001 - 2020. Patriots. 6 Super Bowl wins. 2021 - present. Chiefs. 3 Super Bowl wins and counting. Now let's look at the receivers and TEs those teams had. 1970s Steelers. Two Hall of Fame WRs. 1980s 49ers. Jerry Rice for the second half of their dynasty. 1990s Cowboys. Michael Irvin (Hall of Fame), plus a Pro Bowl TE (Jay Novacek) 2000s Patriots. Early on, their defense was better than their offense, and I don't recall them having any memorable receivers. But then their offense improved, and they got Rob Gronkowski, a top 3 all time TE. Also Edelman, a very solid WR. And Wes Welker, another good WR. 2021 - present Chiefs. They have Kelce, a top 3 all time TE. Early in their dynasty they had Tyreek Hill, an elite WR. Now they have Rice, a solid #1 WR. Based on the above, it would appear that if you want to have a dynasty team, you need either a) a Hall of Fame WR, OR b) a top 3 all time TE, plus a solid #1 WR. I completely agree with your idea of trading away Diggs, but I don't want to see the Bills get worse at WR.

You should try being an octopus. Much easier to wrap your head around things when you don't have a skull.

There were two times that Jevon Kearse rushed untouched to Rob Johnson. Untouched. I mean, I could sort of see that if Kearse was a blitzing safety or something. He wasn't. He was a defensive end. It shouldn't have been a complete shock to the OL that a DE would want to rush the passer. Or course Johnson is going to take sacks on those plays. Any QB would. Those plays generated at least one of Johnson's fumbles. During the late '90s, the Bills OL had one starter-caliber player: Ruben Brown. The other starters were at a Ryan Bates level, which is to say, quality backup. And quite frankly, I'd take Ryan Bates over Corbin Lacina or Jamie Nails. So you have an OL that's quality backup caliber, except for Ruben Brown. Then you have a sack waiting to happen type QB, in the form of Rob Johnson. But, when Johnson was given good protection, he played at a high level. That's why he was able to put up outstanding numbers for the Jacksonville Jaguars, while being protected by Hall of Fame LT Tony Boselli. When he was with the Bills, he'd often do better in the second half of games than the first half, because in the second half he'd receive some level of pass protection. During the Titans game, the Bills' offensive production came in the second half, due to the OL doing more in the second half than the absolute nothing it had done in the first. During Johnson's time with the Bills, Butler invested no significant resources into bringing in new quality OL. Like, nothing. He wildly overestimated the play of John Fina, and gave him a monster contract. One year into that new contract, the Bills' new GM Tom Donahoe cut him. Fina then signed with another team, at the vet minimum. And that was Buffalo's second-best OL, after Ruben Brown. In the late '90s, the Bills defense was by far the best I've ever seen from a Bills team. I mean, that defense was for real. It was the type of defense that wins championships, as long as your offense is at least somewhat good. Flutie was too old to be the QB of the future, and it was either in the 2000 or 2001 season that it became clear he was no longer a credible starter. Rob Johnson at least had youth on his side, but it had become clear he was not the answer either, at least not when playing behind one of the worst OLs of the league. But, maybe he could have accomplished something, had he played behind an OL that was at least somewhat credible? The only way to find out would have been to invest resources into making the OL better. Nothing could have been further from John Butler's thoughts. So now you have a situation where your QB is 100% guaranteed to fail, either due to old age (Flutie), or due to the fact that the roster construction homes in on Johnson's greatest weakness (sack propensity). And, you have this absolutely magnificent defense, which needs at least something from the offense if it's going to challenge for a championship. Sadly the greatness of that defense disappeared quickly, due to old age, injuries, and Ralph Wilson's unwise decision to fire Wade Phillips.

Your post isn't specific to Beane in particular. It's defense of pretty much every NFL front office for the past few decades. With that in mind, I'd like to take a trip down memory lane, to the 2006 draft. Marv Levy was the Bills' GM, Dick Jauron was the head coach. Levy/Jauron used the 8th overall pick to draft Donte Whitner, SS. Then, they traded back up into the first round, to take John McCargo, DT. Nick Mangold, C, was drafted one pick later. A number of fans decried these picks. Many wanted the 8th overall pick to be used on Ngata, a defensive lineman. I personally wanted the Bills to take Jay Cutler, QB. Many, including myself, wanted the Bills to take Mangold. Whitner was not a bad player, but he never came anywhere close to living up to his lofty draft position. Ngata had a great career, and was much better than Whitner. Cutler played well for the Broncos for a number of years. When they finally traded him away, they received 2 first round picks, Kyle Orton, and some other stuff. That's two more first round picks, one more Kyle Orton, and one more instance of other stuff than the Bills received for the departure of Whitner. Whitner went first-contract-and-out. McCargo was a bust, and Mangold was the NFL's best center for a long number of years. The Bills made do with a backup caliber center, in the form of Melvin Fowler. In the late '70s, during the middle of a game, Notre Dame benched their starting QB. They put in a backup instead. The crowd started cheering. "What is going on?" asked a reporter from the opposing team. "We just put Joe Montana in the game," a Notre Dame reporter replied. "Now you guys are going to lose." The fans recognized what Notre Dame had in Joe Montana before the coaching staff did. Excessive knowledge is not a substitute for insight. Sometimes, the fans are right, and coaches or front offices are wrong. Beane is a better GM than Levy/Jauron, and he's not going to do anything as boneheaded as drafting Donte Whitner 8th overall. But even Beane can make avoidable mistakes. If or when a GM or coach makes an avoidable mistake, it will often be pointed out by at least some fans. To broadly label all fan criticisms "Debi from Depew" demonstrates a lack of knowledge of the last 20 years of this team's history.

I respect your thought process. You could well be right about all of this. But I'm not 100% sure. I want to zero in on our most recent playoff loss to the Chiefs. Bills receivers had 160 yards of drops. You look at Coleman's game, and some of his best attributes are his ability to defeat press coverage, and his strong tendency to actually catch the football. The hope is that Coleman, Samuel, Shakir, and Kincaid will have a lot less than 160 yards of drops. While that hope may or may not come to fruition, at least it's rational. Then you look at the Bills defense. Under McDermott, the Bills defense has never generated more than two stops in a playoff game against the Chiefs or the Bengals. All we have to do to be better on playoff defense is to generate at least three stops against the Chiefs. Cole Bishop could be better at covering Kelce than anyone was in our most recent postseason loss. We also have a bunch of defenders coming back from injury. Like, a bunch. The real question is whether McDermott/Babich will call a soft zone/prevent defense against the Chiefs, or whether they'll use something that actually works. This Bills defense definitely has the talent to generate 3+ stops against the Chiefs. Whether it will have the right defensive game plan remains to be seen.

You make a good point. I was unimpressed with Ken Dorsey. It's hard to fairly evaluate Brady, because he was stuck using a playbook designed by someone else. That said, taking the ball out of our best player's hands, and having James Cook run it up the middle instead for a 3 yard gain, hardly seems like a stroke of Bill Walsh level genius. Brady has the whole offseason to prepare. This time around, it will be his playbook. I'm sure he had considerable input into the decision to draft Coleman and sign Curtis Samuel. By the end of the season, we should have a pretty good gauge on what we have or don't have in the form of Joe Brady.

I'd divide "best" into two categories. There's best in the regular season. Separately, there's best in the postseason. If you look at regular season accomplishments, Diggs is ahead of Reich by a lot. Not even close. But then you look at postseason accomplishments. In the recent playoff game against the Chiefs, Allen averaged 2.6 yards per attempt when targeting Diggs. (3 receptions on 8 targets, for 21 yards.) Compare that to Reich, who in the playoffs achieved the greatest comeback in NFL history. And then played well in the following week's postseason game. Reich's postseason play absolutely destroys that of Diggs. If you value regular season play over the postseason, then sure, go ahead and vote for Diggs. Nothing wrong with that. But Diggs didn't show up in any of our postseason losses. I respect your position, but there's a very strong argument to be made for Reich as well.

Different definitions of playoff drought players. Definition 1: A player who played playoff games with the Bills early in his career, but who went on to spend time in the playoff drought. Two guys I'd take from this category: Ted Washington and Eric Moulds. Ted Washington was a mountain of a man. Despite regularly being double-teamed, he made a lot of plays. You look at his statistics, and you think, this is really good for a NT. Eric Moulds was a true #1 WR, who had over 200 yards of receptions in the playoff game against Miami. Definition 2: A player who started his Bills career during the drought, but hung around just long enough to see the drought broken. Guys I'd take from this category: Kyle Williams and Eric Wood. Williams was the Bills' best drought-era draft pick, and would make a major contribution to the interior of the DL. Wood was a good player, but not of the same caliber as Williams. He'd provide much-needed help at center. Definition 3: A player who entered the league as a Bill during the drought, and who didn't sniff the playoffs while in a Bills uniform. Guys I'd take in this category: Jason Peters (LT) and Fred Jackson (RB). Jason Peters is a Hall of Fame LT, and in his prime would be a prize addition to just about any team. Fred Jackson was a surprisingly good RB, great instincts, and overall very solid football player. Definition 4: Players who spent most of their careers elsewhere, but who came to the Bills late career for a short duration. (This definition is ridiculous, btw.) Guys I'd take in this category: Terrell Owens (HOF), WR. Frank Gore (HOF), RB.

In the playoff game against the Chiefs, Diggs had 3 receptions on 8 targets, for 21 yards. When targeting Diggs, Allen averaged 2.6 yards per attempt. Allen's career average is 7.2 yards per attempt. Now look at the Bills in 2018. They had their worst opening day QB starter (Nate Peterman) in a very long time. Kelvin Benjamin and Andre Holmes may have been the worst starting pair of WRs in this team's history. Arguably the worst OL in the team's history. Nate Peterman averaged 3.6 yards per attempt in 2018. What Diggs did against the Chiefs in the playoffs was even worse than the Nate Peterman offensive disaster in 2018. Let that sink in. It's not like that game was a one time thing. Diggs had a habit of not showing up in playoff games against the Chiefs. When the Bills approached him about taking a pay cut, he said he wasn't interested. At that point, the numbers made the decision very easy. Not every highly paid receiver is Stephon Diggs. Some other highly paid WRs actually produce in the playoffs. Think about the Arizona Cardinals, back when they had Kurt Warner as their QB. Not much about that team was special, except their QB, and their WR corps (Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin). Their QB + receivers were good enough to get them to the Super Bowl, and almost good enough for them to win it. It absolutely can make sense to pay big bucks to a WR, assuming you're paying the right guy.