BillsFanForever19

Coming out of Training Camp, you have a certain number you're allowed to designate to return from IR before the season starts. If you don't designate them that, they're out for the year. Both Hairston and Grable were given that designation. So they're eligible to return. Carter, on the other hand is not. In season, I believe you don't have to label as you do prior to the season. But you're only allowed 8 to return. I believe Hairston and Grable count amongst that 8, even though they were officially labeled prior to the season starting. And no, they have the Return from IR designation - but neither returned with their 21 day practice window yet.

Yeah, that made me laugh. Comes in and says they "reopened federal charges" - which is just completely false. There was an initial investigation 4 years ago and no charges were filed. That's it from the state level and there was nothing from the federal level. The accuser filed a civil suit after he got paid, but that's it. He's claiming some "burglary charge". There's nothing there. In the allegation, the accuser initially alleged he stole stuff. But, again, they didn't find evidence to charge him. And in the civil case, there's no claim of burglary. It's just an SA liability case. So, yeah, that's just wrong. I guess when you're that wrong, it's better to just act like you're privy to knowledge no one else is rather than just say admit you're wrong...

I don't think there's any bending of the rules here. Sanders was fully going until last week when it was reported he had a knee injury and now he had to get surgery. I highly doubt they're choosing to get unnecessary surgery on their high 2nd Round Pick and voluntarily upending his development just to fit Larry Ogunjobi on the roster. As for Hairston, they're clearly being overly cautious with him. They don't want to give him a full load, even in practice until he's fully healthy.

I mean, you've been commenting on a number of things that aren't based in reality already - what's stopping you now?

Players on IR now are as follows: CB Maxwell Hairston (IR to Return) DT T.J. Sanders CB Dorian Strong K Tyler Bass S Damar Hamlin OT Tylan Grable (IR to Return) P Cameron Johnston DT Dewayne Carter (Ineligible to Return) Sanders going down really stinks. Between Hairston (who we hopefully get back soon), Sanders, and Strong our Defensive focused Draft class has been decimated by injuries. Thankfully we should have Ed Oliver back and Ogunjobi after this week to replace him. But ideally, we had all 3 cycling the 3T spot. Sanders needed surgery to repair his knee. McDermott wouldn't completely rule out Sanders possibly returning at some point late in the season. But I'm not holding my breath. Though he seemed to indicate it's unlikely for Hamlin. We currently have 2 open roster spots, on top of players like Sam Franklin Jr. and Jimmy Ciarlo who were signed to the roster from the Practice Squad. So all that effort people put into racking their brains on how we'd fit Maxwell Hairston, Michael Hoecht, and Larry Ogunjobi was for naught, as moving all 3 on to the Roster can easily be done without having to move on from anyone the initial 53. Though given the reasoning for that, it's not something you like to see.

I disagree. When the Rams had Cooper Kupp, but needed help on the Outside - would it have made sense for them to pass on trading for Odell Beckham Jr. (that they could put on the field at the same time as Kupp) to bring in another Slot like Kupp? No. Likewise It would have made zero sense, when we already had Khalil Shakir (our Kupp), Dalton Kincaid, and Curtis Samuel to bring in another Slot guy - when literally all we had was Mack Hollins and nothing else on the Outside. In a vacuum, I see the logic you're trying to go with. But when you have literally nothing at a position, you have to fill those spots first. Ladd McConkey would have served to take Khalil Shakir or Kincaid off the field and we'd be rolling with Hollins and MVS as our Outside guys with no backups. It'd have been like us drafting a Nickel CB in 2023 or 2025 when we already had Taron Johnson but needed to replace a starting Outside CB. Drafting a 3T when you need a 1T, a Middle Linebacker when you need an Outside Linebacker, an Interior Offensive Lineman when you need an Offensive Tackle. Just because they're in the same position group doesn't mean their skill set and talent at their natural position is transferrable anywhere.

As a Draft prospect, he absolutely warranted the 30th pick in the Draft. Not all 1st round picks are created equal. Our 1sts since 2019 are closer to 2nd's.

We traded out of the 1st in 2024, Kincaid is maybe our best receiving option this year and is looking more like his Rookie season, we just extended Rousseau to an 80m deal, didn't have a 2020 1st, Ed Oliver is pretty damn good, Josh Allen is Josh friggin' Allen, and Tre White was an All Pro CB before injuries. Outside of Kaiir Elam in 2022, I don't know what you're talking about. Unless you've already determined Maxwell Hairston is a bust before he's ever played a down in the NFL. Busts in the 1at happen to everyone at some point in time, especially when you're picking closer to the 2nd to begin with. But saying our 1sts "don't usually work out"? That's really inaccurate when you break it down.

It depends how far he traded back. Considering Ja'Lynn Polk, who was considered to go much later than Coleman as an Outside WR prospect, was reached for just 4 Picks after we took him (and has already been traded away for a bag of balls) - I think the idea that we could have waited on Coleman is inaccurate. It's been said they settled on Polk bc they missed out on Coleman. And the other Top 3 Outside WR's left - Adonai Mitchell, Troy Franklin, and Jermaine Burton, all had red flags that caused them to heavily slip down boards. On the Ladd or Cooper note - I've beaten this horse to death, both Pre-Draft and Post-Draft to this day, but Ladd wasn't compatible for us. We didn't need guys who were Slots. Anyone who worked out of the Slot even as much as 50% of snaps were out. We had that covered with Khalil Shakir, Dalton Kincaid, and Curtis Samuel. But we had nothing (besides Mack Hollins) to replace Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis on the Outside. And as I said in the post, Coleman has better numbers than McConkey thus far this season anyways. Hard to argue against the idea of taking Cooper DeJean instead of Keon Coleman with hindsight, especially seeing the position we're in at CB right now. But at the time, we didn't know Douglas was going to hit a wall and as I said, we had a *glaring hole* at Outside WR. And when you consider the Draft red flags with Mitchell, Burton, and Franklin - the pickings were incredibly slim at that point.

I do agree that the plan was to start White. But I like to think, as I said, that was just to ease Hairston in. That they'd ramp up Hairston's reps throughout the second half of Training Camp and the Pre-Season. And when the season started, he'd get more and more reps until he got his proverbial sea legs under him and ultimately move White to the bench. Especially now with how bad he's playing. We'll never know what the plan was bc of the injury to Hairston before the Pre-Season and the 2nd Half of Training Camp started. You could be right. It could have been White and Hairston not starting unless there was an injury. And if that were the case, it's simply malpractice.

Said it all off-season, I would not have extended Greg Rousseau and Terrel Bernard. At least not until I saw how their 2025 went. With Bernard, he regressed in 2024 and he's started to show a penchant for getting dinged up. So far this year, it's felt like more of the same. He makes a big play every once in a while, like the Baltimore game. But the only true consistency is that the pass game and run defense beyond the line of scrimmage is terrible. With Rousseau, if he's so valuable, why have we spent every off-season saying "we need a premier Edge Rusher"? If we want one of them, we have to pay Parsons/Garrett money and that's unlikely to happen while you're paying Rosseau 20m a year on the other side. I feel as though Beane follows the "Draft, Develop, Retain" mantra too much, to a detriment. We are consistently in a spot every off-season where we're begging for game changers but cannot afford to get them bc we're up against the Cap - retaining too many decent players at the cost of being able to get great players. People were advocating for going all out this off-season on additions, even if it meant we wouldn't re-sign any of them. I knew that wouldn't happen and that we needed to retain 2-3. But even I didn't think we'd sign *all 5*.

People are hyper focused on him bc he's our guy and saying Drafting him was a mistake. But when you compare him to all of the other top options we could have went with instead - his numbers are better than practically every single other option, especially when you consider Slots weren't what we were in the market for: Keon Coleman - 21 receptions, 226 yards, 2 TDs Xavier Worthy (injured for 2 games) - 11 receptions, 125 yards, 0 TD Ricky Pearsall (Slot) - 21 receptions, 327 yards, 0 TD Xavier Legette - 6 receptions, 39 yards, 1 TD Ladd McConkey (Slot) - 21 receptions, 213 yards, 1 TD Ja'Lynn Polk (Traded to the Saints with a 7th for a 6th) - Inactive all year Adonai Mitchell - 7 receptions, 137 yards, 0 TD Malachi Corley (Slot, Cut by Jets and signed to Browns Practice Squad) - Inactive all year Jermaine Burton - Inactive all year Roman Wilson (Slot) - 1 reception, 7 yards, 0 TD Luke McCaffrey (Slot) - 7 receptions, 146 yards, 2 TDs Javon Baker (Cut by Patriots, Signed to Eagles PA) - Inactive all year Troy Franklin - 21 receptions, 231 yards, 1 TD

Geesh - I thought we were finally done with him. He made Milano look reliable and available.

We didn't "get rid of" Tyrel Dodson. When his contract was up, he was signed by the Seahawks to be their starter, to fairly decent money. He wasn't going to give up the opportunity to start in Seattle to be a Backup here.

I think the hope was that Tre returning to the Defense he was familiar with would make him at least serviceable. The issue is, not only is he not remotely the same guy anymore, but the stellar Safety play behind him he was used to isn't there to bail him out. I don't think the plan was ever to start him and have him play 100% of the snaps as he is now. There was an outside chance Hairston would start out of the gate. But more likely he'd be splitting reps with Hairston initially, with Hairston gradually getting more as he got his sea legs under him - ultimately starting and taking over by this point or mid season. Hairston getting injured really messed those plans up. But we had an insurance policy in Dorian Strong, like we did when we took Elam and Benford. And he showed some promise. Last night, I'm positive he'd be being cycled in for White with how bad he was playing. As he had been throughout the season. But now Strong's on IR too. And we're just stuck with White. Relying on him 100% with no one cycling in for him, unless we want to go with Ingram. This is absolutely nowhere to be. The good news is i'd expect to have Hairston back after the bye or soon thereafter. The bad news is, that plan to bring him along slowly and not throw too much at him too soon will probably still happen. So I wouldn't expect them to just throw him into the fire.

Except for the fact that Ladd and Shakir play the same position. So you aren't going to have them on the field at the same time very often or at all. McConkey's a Slot. Which is why we didn't Draft him. On top of McConkey being a Slot, serving to just take Shakir off the field and do little to nothing to replace Diggs and Davis on the Outside - thus far this season, McConkey and Coleman's stats are near identical - with a slight edge to Coleman: Coleman - 21 receptions, 226 yards, and 2 TDs McConkey - 21 receptions, 213 yards, and 1 TD Through the first 5 games, this idea that we'd be much better off with McConkey is statistically false.

To focus on Coleman and only Coleman for the loss and obsess over a fumble that cost us 3 out of 23 points, and happened in the 1st Quarter of a 4 Quarter terrible game is absolutely, positively absurd. Coleman jumped up and caught a 50/50 ball to sustain a drive to keep us alive. Coleman caught a TD to make up for it. Would have likely had another 50/50 TD in the back of the end zone had Josh not overthrown the ball. There's so, so, so many players to blame for the loss. Feels like you want to blame Coleman for the loss bc you don't like him as a player and you don't want to call out other players you do like. Keon's not near the top of the list of people that should be blamed today.

Yeah, the plan was always for him to be at most a bridge to Hairston - if not a backup to Hairston straight out of Camp. The injury to Hairston forced us to rely on him, which is *nowhere* you want to be. They'd have been playing more of Dorian Strong tonight with how poorly White was playing. But now we don't even have him either. That's the toughest part about this. White is toast. But our only other options right now are to play Ja'Marcus Ingram or Dane Jackson. Which probably wouldn't be much worse, but wouldn't be any better either. Tonight was exactly why I was saying the idea from another poster that we IR'ed him to make room for players coming and that it was "nothing to see" was ridiculous. We really could have used him tonight and I can't believe they'd purposely put us in a situation where we would have no choice but to stick with White.

I'd rather trust Allen with one play to put them in a position to force the Patriots to have to score a Touchdown to beat us, with less time on the clock, than I would giving them the ball back with 2:20 and asking our walking wounded siv of a Defense to keep them out of Field Goal range where they all have to do is kick it and win. You can talk about analytics all you want, but look at the result. It happened just as I expected it would when we did the "analytical" thing.

Kicking the field goal to tie the game with 2:20 on the clock was a horrendous coaching decision. Best case scenario, you're tieing the game and putting it on the back of your defense to keep them out of Field Goal range, when they're going to be playing with all 4 downs to do it. When we're the walking wounded on Defense and they've proven all game they can't stop them. Anything less than a 3 and Out and it was over. That was a scenario where you go for it. If you don't make it, you lose. But kicking the field goal was always a recipe for losing too. I wouldn't even call it coward ball because it didn't even put us ahead. Just plain ole' stupid.

Cole Bishop, 10 yards deep, was the only player lined up on Diggs. What. Are. We. Doing.

When they showed Diggs on the sidelines for 2nd Down, I said "just keeping him fresh to pick up the 1st down on 3rd down against White". Like clockwork. He has no answer for him.

I'd say pull White off the field but we don't have anyone worth a damn underneath him either.

Gotta keep them out of the end zone here. Even holding them to a field goal and keeping it a one score game while we've had double digit penalties and are losing the turnover battle 3-1 would be impressive.

Tre is just bad this season.