BillsFanForever19

But he's in the shot.... "Deepfake"

We didn't have an opportunity to draft him in the 4th anyways. We would have had to have taken him instead of Dewayne Carter in the 3rd or moved from 128 to the 1st Pick on Day 3 at 101. I said that the Troy Franklin crowd had severely overhyped his status as a prospect all offseason. There were WAY more warts in his game than his fans were saying there were when I watched his stuff beyond the highlight reel. I had him as a mid 2nd - early 3rd Round prospect. And that was before the reports of him bombing interviews came out. We met with him at the Combine. We were at his Pro Day, where he strangely decided to stick to his times in his (abysmal) 10 Yard and (lower than expected) 40 Yard Dashes - even though he claimed the bad performances were due to him being sick. We brought him in for a visit and even worked him out again, essentially to give him a do over of the Combine. After all of that, at picks 60 and 95, Beane wasn't interested in Drafting him. And no team in the entire league was interested in taking him until Round 4. Beane and the entire league determined in scouting him and meeting with him that he's not a prospect that can be relied upon in Year 1, if at all. If he were, he'd have been selected where his fanbase pre-Draft assumed he'd go and not on Day 3. And honestly, i'd have been interested to see where he was selected if Denver hadn't selected his College QB in Round 1 (as I think that played a role in his selection). Knowing all of that, it blows my mind that not selecting him seems to be the main argument and swaying point most go to when it comes to Beane addressing or not addressing the WR core adequately. He determined he was better off going with MVS and Claypool this year then he was with someone viewed as a risky project by not only him, but the entire league. I don't see that as an insane decision based on what the league as a whole thought of Franklin - as well as every Outside prospect from 60 onwards.

... if you don't disagree, you understand that "The Bills TE" is one of "The Bills WRs". It's a real weak argument to understand that and go "even though he plays WR, his official listing on the roster page is a TE, so he doesn't count and I'm only going to judge the room based on who's *officially* listed as a WR". "The Bills TE" is Dawson Knox. Dalton Kincaid is a Big Slot WR and should be thought of as part of the WR core, regardless of what his official designation on the Roster sheet says. Like I said, it also says Von Miller is a Linebacker and will all know he's a Defensive End.

Dalton Kincaid is as much a TE as Von Miller is a LB. Much like Travis Kelce, Dalton Kincaid is a Big Slot WR. He very rarely lines up as a true Tight End.

They did. Beane said as much anytime he was brought up. If the plan was to move on from Diggs, they would have done it early when they were getting rid of everyone else and would have had a different plan for attacking Free Agency early. And you don't eat that much dead cap unless you feel you don't have a choice. It was clear from Beane's presser when he refused to answer whether Diggs had demanded a trade and in the timing of it - both from when it was done in the Offseason and how soon after his last tweet throwing shade at Josh - things just hit a breaking point and it was done out of necessity rather than wanting to. Another thing he said in the presser was that everything he does is with what's best for the Bills in mind. And although he said we're not better without him, the move was what was best for the Bills. I don't know any other way of looking at that other than that the situation had become untenable. If Diggs hadn't gone nuclear, both publicly and probably even worse privately, he'd still be here.

I would hope it's sarcasm. Sadly, it's really hard to tell with some of the posters around here.

Jesus Christ. Are you serious with this garbage?

Thank you, I was literally in the process of typing the exact same thing.

Not great, in my opinion. We don't always have the greatest weapons and so many of our games are pulled out by Josh playing hero ball, putting the team on his back, and literally scratching and crawling for first downs to stay alive. Cousins isn't doing that and can't do that. The answer is probably somewhere in the middle of where Tyrod Taylor could take the Bills and where Josh takes the Bills.

People be like "don't wave your gayness in my face, keep it to your community" and "trans shouldn't compete in sports with non trans people" *Flag football league starts where they keep to themselves* "What's up with this exclusion?!" Honestly, I think it's sad. If people just treated everyone as people regardless of their orientation - maybe they wouldn't have to create a league amongst themselves to feel comfortable and welcome among all.

I don't understand how it's settling if he ranked them evenly. If he ranked them evenly, that means he could move down, still get a guy he ranked just as high as the guy he'd take at 28, and pick up assets elsewhere. He moved down 4 spots. He knew that not every team from 28-32 was picking a WR. Once he got to 32, he must have still had at least two guys evenly ranked and everyone knew they were going Legette. So he moved down just 1 more spot bc he preferred Coleman and knew he would still be there. We didn't have a 3rd. In the process of doing this, he was able to pick up Dewayne Carter, who he wouldn't have otherwise got. And the two WR's that went ahead of them between 28 and 32 were guys he wasn't interested in. With Dalton Kincaid, Curtis Samuel, and Khalil Shakir - we have the Inside and Inside/Outside Flex WR's more than covered. He was looking specifically at Big True X's. He said as much. That's where the holes were. Xavier Worthy and Ricky Pearsall may be great, but they weren't what he was looking for. He was able to get what he was looking for and pick up better players later at other positions at the same time. Evaluation wise, right now, that's a smart move. Will it look bad if Xavier Legette blows up and Keon Coleman falls on his face? Sure. But Worthy and Pearsall weren't the type of WR we were looking for anyways.

Not even speculation. Just a "wouldn't it be cool if?" article playing Madden with team's rosters. They're a dime a dozen during the offseason because there's nothing to talk about and they're not worth the little bandwidth they're taking up. The sad part is fanbases read this stuff and take it seriously. When reality is that 99.99% of the people "rumored" to be available to be traded aren't available and will never be traded. Then the fanbases go "what is this GM doing? they could have had (so and so)" - based on meaningless articles like this or Twitter chatter.

You're looking at this the wrong way. It isn't that he didn't like him or he was unafraid of him getting picked. It was that he had multiple WR's ranked evenly. After the guys that went in the Top 10 and BTJ, it seemed everyone had differing opinions and it came down to what you were looking for. And it's possible to have a log jam of players ranked fairly evenly at a position and still think highly of those players. From Picks 28-37, 6 of those 9 picks were WR's. At Pick 28, he probably had a number of guys he was looking at and knew he could still land one of them at 32. And at 32, he had at least two guys he was looking at that were even, so he knew he could move to 33 and still land one. We were looking for a true X Outside WR. Not a slot, not a Tweener, a big X. So guys like Worthy, Pearsall, and McConkey weren't much of a consideration - but other teams were in need of those kind of inside or inside/outside guys, even though that's not what we were looking for. He most likely knew KC was drafting Worthy and when they got to 32, they definitely knew Carolina was taking Legette. Everyone knew that was coming. So he knew he could go to 33 and still land Coleman. Considering Ja'Lynn Polk was taken at 37 (the next X if teams were iffy on Mitchell and considered to go later than he did), Coleman wouldn't have lasted much longer even if we hadn't taken him. It's been pretty much said Coleman would have been the pick if we stood pat at 28 and would have been the pick at 32. Just because he was the 8th WR taken doesn't mean we had him as WR8 in the Draft and every team in the league did. Every team after the top 4 guys went probably had a different ranking and it just boiled down to the type you were in need of.

I don't think bringing him back was an option. We may very well have tried to. But if you're Araiza, are you going to return to us and compete for the job or get a fresh start, signing with the back to back Super Bowl Champions who had no real competition?

While I don't disagree with the concept of getting him better weapons, I do disagree with the idea of making Josh a pocket QB. Josh is not a pocket QB. His accuracy improved between College and the Pro's, against the odds. But he's not a Manning, Brady, Rodgers type. If you take his ability to get first downs with his legs away, you're getting a much lesser QB. I think that showed in the first half of the season. McDermott was banging it into his skull to run less and not risk injury. And the results were mixed. It wasn't until later in the season and into the Playoffs when he put that out of his head that we started going on a run.

That doesn't help. It doesn't open up the stuff beyond the paywall.

Because it's the Super Bowl ring ceremony? Should he not get his ring? Even if that's not what was happening, players are friends off the field regardless of the teams they're on.

I think that's an oversimplification. There was a time as recent as a few years ago where we weren't as privy about contracts and money would seemingly appear like magic. These days, especially this year, every single contract where money could be saved was accounted for. Every cut, restructure, extension, pay cut possible was talked ad nauseum when we were 54m over. And for that list, we did pretty much all of them that we were going to do or could do, before their money guarantee deadlines. There were only two cords that were left unpulled: an Oliver restructure that could save 3.9m and a Milano restructure could save 2.4m. Not sure why he didn't do Oliver, but I have to imagine they want to leave Milano's contract alone - coming off a catastrophic injury. And I think if either was something he wanted to do, he'd have done it when we were scrambling for any possible way to save money. Beyond that, the only things he can do are things he's never done before. Everyone likes to point out he left meat on the bone in Allen's contract. But he must have done that for a reason, as we needed it. If he didn't do it then, I don't see him doing it now. He's never restructured any deal twice in the same offseason. Outside of that, all he could do is restructure FA contracts from this year that he just signed. Another thing he's never done and extremely unlikely as he carefully terms each contract how he wants it when they sign. So the idea that we could do "pretty much anything" is a wild stretch. Could we do a signing? Sure. But anything? No - we can't swing something massive. Especially when we're already 15+m over for next season already.

From the sounds of Beane's presser and the timing of the trade, keeping Diggs wasn't really an option. He refused to answer whether or not Diggs had demanded a trade, which really says all that needs to be said there. The trade happened hours after Diggs made a "you sure about that?" tweet in reply to someone saying Allen would be fine without Diggs. It was an untenable situation. He had already started giving up on the team last season - voluntarily taking himself off the field on important 3rd downs and dropping passes he normally wouldn't, showing mental lapses. Keeping him against his will this year would have just provided more problems and probably even less quality of play. As for Troy Franklin - the guy fell to Pick 102 of Round 4 for a reason. If he were truly the player that you and a lot of people think he is, he wouldn't have lasted that long. He had already replaced Harty with Samuel and Sherfield with Hollins. Leaving 1 spot needing to be filled from last season. He viewed MVS as someone he could count on more in Year 1 than Franklin. As for OBJ over MVS - OBJ turns 32 years old this year. He has a *terrible* injury history and hasn't had so much as a 600 yard season since 2019. Even with all of those concerns, it's very possible and something I could easily see that OBJ would rather go to South Beach than Buffalo. From a locale standpoint and a tax standpoint. We can't force someone to sign here. And we may have been in on him and he simply wanted to go to Miami. Or he simply preferred MVS over OBJ. We'll never know. We shall see if the guys he chose work or you're right that it's not enough. But we weren't in the position this season to go apesh-t like you expected. And I'm not ready to say an offense with Allen at QB, Cook at RB, Kincaid, Coleman, Samuel, and Shakir as the top 4 passing options is the disgusting, awful, inexcusable failure you like to paint it as. Especially when you take into account where we were cap wise and roster wise before FA started. There's a lot of potential there. And with what we have going out in terms of production down the stretch from Diggs, Davis, Harty, and Sherfield - I can't imagine it could be much worse.

If it were major, they'd have said something by now and he wouldn't have been walking around on it the next day. It was worrisome when it was announced because there was very little info and I've seen multiple ACL tears where the guy limped to the sidelines, only to be done for the year. But, yeah, no news at this point and him being on the side is extremely good news. If it were an ACL tear, something would have come out about it by the next day at the latest.

At the time that he had to move Diggs, the FA WR pool had dried up. It boiled down to two options: 1.) Keep Diggs and the cancer that was getting worse or 2.) Move on from him knowing replacing him with a like level talent was probably not going to happen. Clearly, he felt we had to move on from Diggs and that even if we couldn't land a talent level like his, it was still better for the team than keeping him. Can an argument be made that he should have pulled the cord sooner? That would be a fair argument to be made. And had he done that, he probably would have worked things differently. Probably would have went for a cheaper inside option (or maybe we would have drafted one) than Samuel and a more expensive Outside option (and maybe one less) than MVS, Hollins, and Claypool. But your trade options aren't really options. They're Twitter "rumors" that 99.9% of the time go nowhere. Many have re-signed with their team already, are in the long term plans of their team to be re-signed, or are simply not available (For example - Seattle has turned down multiple trade overtures for Metcalf this offseason). Like trading into the Top 10, you may want it, but the other team needs to want it as well. It's not as simple as "just get it done". Ultimately, we went into this offseason 54m over the cap with 21 FA's. We had to cut or trade 8 more players on top of that 21. 29 bodies either out the door or needing to be re-signed. We needed to replace 2 starting WR's (and 4/5 or 5/6 of the entire core), 1 starting IOL, 1 starting DE (and 3/5 of the entire core), 1 starting DT (and 4/5 of the entire core), 2 starting Safeties (and the entire core), the 2nd RB to Cook, and a myriad of other depth pieces. We pulled every release, extension, pay cut, and re-structure cord possible. Save for 2 - Oliver and Milano re-structure. And Milano he probably doesn't want to do coming off a major injury. You like to bring up another Allen re-structure - but if he wanted to take more, he'd have done it then. He's never redone a contract twice in the same offseason. As it is, with everything he's done that you say isn't enough, we only have 7.5m in cap space. Which is barely more than we'll need for the Practice Squad and in season spending. The choices he made were what he felt was the best moves available to him. Sacrifices were going to have to be made this season with the position we were in. It's as simple as that.

Ah, I see that now. Thanks for correcting me. To this point, all I had seen regarding him was: I still don't see him having a higher ceiling than the Practice Squad though. Too many injuries (including 2 ACL tears between College and the NFL), a complete failure and abandonment from his Drafting team, showed nothing on his second chance change of scenery team - that never elevated him and he wasn't poached from there by anyone, and is now a "futures" guy on his third team in less than a year and will be two years removed from his last snap at the start of the season. He's Andy Isabella from last season if Isabella had a terrible medical record and has even more competition than Isabella had last year. Just like Isabella, I expect to hear Hamler's name all Pre-Season from fans. And even if he has a strong Pre-Season like Isabella, I see him still being cut and easily put on the PS.

Hamler is only that high amongst the fan base. And it's just because he used to be a 2nd Round Pick and he's fast. Reality is he's totally in that Shorter, Shavers, Isabella list - and probably below one or two of them. He's nowhere near in a league of his own that many notches above them. At this point in his career, he needs to REALLY impress to even earn a PS spot. Doesn't seem like he's doing that, to this point. Guys like Shavers and Isabella probably have a leg up having a year in the system already and nowhere NEAR the injury prone history. It always seemed clear who the top 6 were. And if the reports out of OTA's are to believed, it's getting even clearer.

He's wasn't just the consensus WR1 in that class - he was considered the best WR prospect coming out of College, maybe ever. He was Marvin Harrison Jr. 10 years before Marvin Harrison Jr. A "can't miss" prospect.