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Pete Prisco's top 100 players of the NFL. (CBS Sports)
BillsVet replied to whatdrought's topic in The Stadium Wall Archives
This thread was about top 100 players according to one NFL writer. Buffalo features 2 players, one drafted and one acquired via trade. Both happen to play on the outside at the premier positions. There are a few issues intersecting here. First is that you need elite talent at those premier positions: QB, LT, WR, DE, and CB. There's hope for Allen, Diggs, Tre, but then who at those positions on this roster is in-place as Pro Bowl/All-Pro worthy? Second, they have a lot of nice players, but no one that stands out aside from the 2 mentioned on Prisco's list. We can debate individual players ad nauseam. Point is that the 2019 Bills featured 1 starting Pro Bowl player and 1 alternate and they need a lot more than that to be successful in the post-season. And who's all of a sudden talking about quality of play on national TV? That isn't part of this specific conversation. -
Pete Prisco's top 100 players of the NFL. (CBS Sports)
BillsVet replied to whatdrought's topic in The Stadium Wall Archives
You do know the Rams were in the Super Bowl the second year McVay was HC, right? Buffalo hasn't won a playoff game under McBeane. LAR may have some issues, but it's clear their HC understands offense in a way that McDermott/Daboll haven't demonstrated. -
Can Stefon Diggs Emerge as a Superstar in Buffalo?
BillsVet replied to jletha's topic in The Stadium Wall Archives
Average or slightly above average overall talent typically delivers similar results. One can say there are no weaknesses, but what are the strengths? I would say the secondary is strong and the front 7 is stout. On offense, the receivers from 1-3 are very good, but the OL is relatively average or slightly above. I'm not concerned right now about the cap situation in 2021 and beyond. They will be handing out large contracts if their home-grown players can shed their label of having "potential" to those regarded as legit outstanding talent. Who really cares what their cap hit is anyway? It's not like the league is rewarding teams for saving. -
Can Stefon Diggs Emerge as a Superstar in Buffalo?
BillsVet replied to jletha's topic in The Stadium Wall Archives
Buffalo has accomplished this by: 1. Not pursuing big name UFA's (nothing wrong with that) and 2. Not finalizing a contract with a player they drafted. The first likely will not happen under this regime and the second is almost guaranteed to occur multiple times over the next 2-3 seasons. There's still a lot of book to write about McBeane and whether they'll re-sign players to contract exceeding 12M per. Bottom line is that cap dollars saved is not a metric that should be lauded too much. No one gets extra draft picks or wins by saving there. -
Pete Prisco's top 100 players of the NFL. (CBS Sports)
BillsVet replied to whatdrought's topic in The Stadium Wall Archives
The roster has been built to fit the coach’s strategy, vision, and to ensure a solid culture. I like that they’ve improved depth and probably better able to withstand injuries. My concern is their lack of top end talent will show up against better opponents. Depth is nice, but over the season those players will not consistently provide a matchup disadvantage. A good scheme and better in-game decisions may help offset this, but it’s a long season and their schedule likely will be more challenging in 2020. It comes down to Allen’s improvement to be a force multiplier on offense. Hopefully he is up to the task and can get the ball to Diggs and others to improve that side of the ball. I hope McD isn’t going to just expect the defense and a conservative offense will get them deep into the playoffs. -
TBD discussion that casts a player negatively for on or off field matters quickly becomes doctoral thesis level quibbling. Never fails to happen.
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Blain Bishops Thoughts on Doug Flutie . Not Sammy !
BillsVet replied to T master's topic in The Stadium Wall Archives
Gotta believe Whaley's grammar was better. And that's considering his choice of words sometimes was underwhelming. -
Graphic: QBs hurt most by drops last year
BillsVet replied to Big Blitz's topic in The Stadium Wall Archives
I see a lot of Kelvin Benjamin, Invizayble Jones, Isaiah McKenzie, Robert Foster, Deonte Thompson, and a cast of several fringe NFL types in these lowlights. Good to see after 2+ years prioritizing more defense, they finally figured out those receivers were not starting quality. The 2017 and 2018 WR groups were among the worst in the NFL. The price to McD getting to build his defense first in order to steal some games by keeping them close was found on the offensive side of the ball. The OL and WR groups especially. -
SI: Are The Bills Ready To Take The Division?
BillsVet replied to Coach Tuesday's topic in The Stadium Wall Archives
The roster is better, the QB is more experienced and they have continuity at the coordinator and HC. Everything is aligned for Buffalo to beat their biggest adversary. Still, it should be noted that McD is 0-6 against BB and been out-scored by 85 points in those games. He's gotta be better because most games are decided by one score or less. -
Three drills do not nearly form the basis for comparison for a given player's best position. I'll give you one that isn't the whole story - Ed Oliver plays at (we're told) 285-290 on a 6''0-1 frame. Epenesa is 6'4-5 and has been listed around 275-280. Body composition notwithstanding, just comparing height/weight/speed is not telling anyone much of anything. Epenesa looks most like a 40 front LDE and was, in all likelihood, drafted to play there. After all, they signed 2 DT's this off-season, drafted Oliver last year, already had Phillips and Star from the year before. Let's not overthink this. Especially because he's not going to be a 1 technique if he played inside and could (underscore could) bump inside to rush as a 3 tech. Does that push out Oliver on passing downs? I'd hope not considering Oliver's a top 10 pick. Which situations does Epenesa move in?
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Bills 2020 Motto per McDermott "Find a Way"
BillsVet replied to CorkScrewHill's topic in The Stadium Wall Archives
McD's job title needs to change from Head Coach to Chief Executive Officer. -
Do we have the Deepest D-Line in the league?
BillsVet replied to Dkollidas's topic in The Stadium Wall Archives
Those who are objective typically are chided or, at worst, ripped for not applauding most if not every move. I get that to be a fan you have to love the team. At the same time it's not wrong to be analytical and compare your team to the successful ones. I want Buffalo to win the SB like any fan. Loved the trade for Diggs, not keen on trying to be a top defense if it takes away from offensive investment given league trends and what the best teams are doing. We'll see, but all fans' perspectives should be discussed openly and without judgement. Here, that's a bridge too far when it comes to the biggest decisions. -
Do we have the Deepest D-Line in the league?
BillsVet replied to Dkollidas's topic in The Stadium Wall Archives
If you add in cap hits of Addison's ~10M 2020 contract and assume Epenesa with 1.25M for this year, we're talking about 61M going toward the DL of their ~215M in cap dollars spent (assuming 6M for rookie contracts this season). That's approximately about 28% of their cap going to DL and the highest in the NFL so far as I can see. And yes, we should see significant production from that group. My guess is also that Murphy with a 9.775M cap hit many not fit into this group given. Just trying to put some context around this. The cap is flexible and many contracts are short term, but they'll have decisions to make on players soon. Especially with White, perhaps Dawkins, and hopefully Allen up for extensions. -
Looking at McD's tenure as HC, he's 3-17 against playoff teams or in the playoffs combined. If we throw out '17 and '18, they were 1-5 last season against those caliber of teams. They kept games close with defense, but struggled on offense, never scoring more than 19 points against any of those teams (NE 2x, TEN, PHI, BAL, at HOU).
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Do we have the Deepest D-Line in the league?
BillsVet replied to Dkollidas's topic in The Stadium Wall Archives
I did not notice that Addison is being counted as a LB in that analysis. That adds to my argument they've loaded up there and they've not yet signed Epenesa to his rookie contract. We're going to find out if this plan of featuring a deep DL pays off in wins. Ultimately, I think McD wants to be strong against the run to force teams to pass into that secondary with White, Hyde, Poyer, and whomever is CB2. -
I think the concern with Buffalo is they lack elite talent outside of Tre White and perhaps Stefon Diggs. You'd hope that younger players like Oliver, Edmunds, Allen, Singletary, and others might distinguish themselves because the NFL is about creating matchup disadvantages. Heading into the season, Buffalo is strong across several position groups, but their lack of top end talent is something to be aware of. That said, Buffalo isn't going to sneak up on teams the way they might have in 2019 coming off a poor 2018 season. Hopefully, we'll see higher picks ascend into being top performers. They almost need to given the challenge of playing the AFCW and NFCW this season.
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Do we have the Deepest D-Line in the league?
BillsVet replied to Dkollidas's topic in The Stadium Wall Archives
It's not an immediate concern, but many of these short term UFA DL signings will need to be replaced with draftees, yet after 4 drafts they've got 3 younger players on the DL: Phillips, Oliver and Epenesa. If they're going to perennially need a 7-8 man DL rotation, they'll require more draft picks because that seems like the HC's strategy. Bottom line is the 2020 Bills feature a lot of UFA's starting or contributing big minutes and the DL isn't the only example. Their OL and WR groups are largely made up of UFAs or those they've traded for. Still, something to watch out for. -
Do we have the Deepest D-Line in the league?
BillsVet replied to Dkollidas's topic in The Stadium Wall Archives
I look at defense from the standpoint of impact plays: INTs, forced fumbles, and sacks. You can always debate which events on defense are most important, but swinging the momentum typically comes on defense with those results. And, it gets the ball into your offense's hands more to score points. Buffalo didn't lose much talent from their 2019 defense, yet they added 4 DL in the draft and UFA. To me, that's a lot of resources put into a unit that had already contributed to being 2nd in points allowed. I don't think the loss of Jordan Phillips and Shaq Lawson really hurts them significantly. I also recognize they needed to be replaced, and Epenesa probably fits into the role of base 40 front end. Still, is that investment likely to contribute to more wins against a more difficult 2020 schedule? That question will be answered in short order. In the interim, per Spotrac, Buffalo is investing about 23% of their current cap dollars in the DL. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/positional/breakdown/ Perhaps they have the flexibility to continue that trend when Tre White, Dawkins, Milano, and Allen come up for contracts in 2020-21 although it's hard to tell because the cap is very flexible. The point remains that player investment on defense should be centered on who provides impact plays and of course, on the offense. That to me is what makes good teams excellent and improves the W-L record. -
Do we have the Deepest D-Line in the league?
BillsVet replied to Dkollidas's topic in The Stadium Wall Archives
Buffalo's DL depth largely is geared toward stopping the run and less so rushing the passer. Of those players on the roster, Hughes, Oliver, (EDIT: Addison) and perhaps Murphy are the guys who might regularly get to the QB. The rest are either unproven or not pass rushers. The key to good defense now is getting impact plays like sacks, INT's and fumble recoveries, not being strong against the run. Buffalo collected 14 INTs, 9 fumble recoveries, and 44 sacks which combined ranked 11th in the NFL. -
My friend is a Vikings fan, so I hear all about the concerns he has with Zimmer trying to pair a strong defense with a run first offense. Doesn't help that Cousins is limited in some respects. Tennessee, from a team design standpoint, is still an outlier given their lack of results of multiple seasons. The point being, you're not riding Derrick Henry to playoff glory year after year the way a franchise QB that leading an ultra-productive offense can. Teams that try to balance out offense and defense end up running behind Kansas City in the AFC. Tennessee had a good defense and they got 35 hung on them in the AFCCG. San Francisco's defense broke down in the SB when they needed it most, albeit combined with an ineffective and uber-conservative offense late. I know many here want to latch onto the McDermott way, but if he doesn't begin prioritizing offensive production over his precious defense, Buffalo is topping out at a 5/6 seed or losing in the divisional round. Buffalo has to figure out how to compete with the AFC's best if they're going to advance and win the SB. That means beating KC.
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The walk to the parking lot after that game was surreal. All the miscues, and bad coaching that took place near the end of that game was unbelievable. That final drive, Dallas then missing the 2 point conversion, getting the onside kick, and then...how do you let Patrick Crayton make the catch along the sideline to set up that FG? The DBs were off those receivers and gave them the sideline catch. What a mess. Freaking Dick Jauron. No way am I watching that game.
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Buffalo scored 21 or more points just 6 times out of 17 games with five of those performances coming against teams that drafted in the top 10. I want to see the HC get away from the keep-it-close mentality that depends on the defense showing up every week. To win 10 or more games against this year's opponents it's going to take some weeks where Buffalo puts up 30. And that might mean throwing it 40 times. Teams that want to be strong defensively and conservative on offense have a ceiling that is around a 5 or 6 seed. It's going to take the HC changing his perspective and using newly acquired (Diggs) or hopefully improved weapons (Allen, Singletary, Knox) in the passing game.
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Love that they doubled down on WR in this draft
BillsVet replied to John from Riverside's topic in The Stadium Wall Archives
In fairness, Beane hasn't had any team draftees up for an extension yet. Tre White figures to cash in, but he'll be the first. I disagree about receivers needing 2-3 years in the NFL to develop. Plenty of rookies, even those in the 2nd, 3rd and even later rounds have produced out of the gate. 7 receivers after the 50th pick last year recorded more than 500 yards receiving and that was considered a weak class. This year's class likely has to develop without a full off-season, but features a LOT more talent. I've read through coverage of Buffalo's two WR picks, Davis (4th) and Hodgins (6th). Ultimately, they are the bigger framed types McD seems to have clamored for last season. They're looking for a possession type and don't really have anyone on the roster resembling that aside from Duke Williams.