Cash

My grandfather had a great story about him and his normal partner playing for money against some frenemies. Frenemy 1 was sure Grandpa was cheating, and obsessively implemented a 2-point penalty on knocking the table. (Grandpa and his partner were indeed cheating, but knocks had nothing to do with it.) Grandpa eventually won when Frenemy 1 (drunk) knocked without thinking, and the 2-point penalty was enough to end the game. The penalty/win was accepted, but it came with a free punch in the face for my grandfather. I try to pre-empt these by announcing what's trump (and maybe who called it, and sometimes what's led, and sometimes who's turn it is) every time there's a lull in conversation. It's very effective! And usually by the 2nd or 3rd game, I'm distracted enough to need my own reminders.

My Rochester family plays a ton of euchre, so I basically grew up playing it. Played a bunch in high school during lunch & free periods, but otherwise it's mostly at family get-togethers. I find it's an extremely regional game - most people haven't heard of it. I have met a couple of folks through work who know it (they're from the Midwest; one from Michigan and the other I don't recall), but they have a truly bananas scoring system that uses the 3s and 4s. Certain point values required you to angle the top card diagonally! I shudder just thinking about it.

At this point, I’m prepared for a lot, draft-wise. I’m expecting a repeat of the last few years, where it’s clear the Bills start running low on draft able grades around the 4th round. They could really only surprise me with their first 3 picks.

Ditto for either 2nd rounder. It’s unrealistic to expect Allen to improve on an MVP season. It’s also unrealistic to expect such a low turnover rate again. So just to match last year’s offense, we need to improve. So far, I’d say our personnel is about a wash, maybe a slight downgrade depending on how bullish/bearish you are on Palmer. I’d be very happy to add another WR who can contribute, especially if he can play X and/or take the top off a defense and/or get open against press man coverage.

Counterpoint: The Raiders are not, and in my lifetime have never been, a rational or broadly competent organization. If Mark Davis decides they're taking Sanders, they'll take Sanders. (I'd still be surprised, but I'd put it at like 8-1 odds.)

I really didn't get that impression out of this video. Seemed to me like he wanted to make sure Parrino got some quotes for his story, but at the same time say nothing at all. Maybe I missed something, but it sounded like McD just boiled down to "we evaluate and we have decisions to make and the draft is important". Which, yeah very true on all counts, but also so generic that it's useless. On my end, I'm fairly concerned about our DT position. At this point, the FO doesn't have my full benefit of the doubt on that front. They've thrown a lot of resources at the D-line, and had some successes, but enough failures that I'm not willing to give them carte blanche. Looking at the roster now, we have: -Ed Oliver, 3tech only, in his prime -Daquon Jones, 1tech only, past his prime and we could use an upgrade -DeWayne Carter, mostly 3tech (maybe 1tech on passing downs?), entering his 2nd year after a mostly-forgettable rookie year -Larry Ogunjobi, mostly 3tech, journeyman FA and suspended for the first 6 games -And that's it I think, or at least hope, it's a safe bet that we'll draft a 1tech at some point. If we don't, I may panic. My worry is that they think Carter or Ogunjobi can play 1tech full time, and that they're way wrong about it. Hopefully I'm wrong and they draft a 1tech who can play right away, but we'll see. Regardless of what they do in the draft, it's hard for me to imagine a scenario where we open the 2025 season with only rookies at 1tech DT. I think Jones is about as close to a roster lock as an aging vet could be at this point.

I abjectly hate the college OT rule. It's not football to me; it's some sort of mini-game. And yeah, mini-games can be really fun in the way that it's fun to eat cake frosting straight out of the can. But that's not a good way to live your life. I like special teams, and I like the field-position battle in general. Spoon-feeding offenses the ball in scoring range just doesn't do it for me and never will.

I've gone back and forth and all over the place on OT rules over the years. For a long time, I was a staunch "sudden death is the way" guy. I eventually relented, when I saw too many OTs that consisted of one mediocre drive resulting in a 40-50 yard FG. That's boring. So I was fully on board when the rules were changed to roughly, "sudden death unless the first score is a FG". I'm still not fully opposed to that, but I will concede that it's pretty lame these days when a shootout ends with just one OT possession. As is tradition, the Bills got screwed by fair application of an existing rule (13 seconds game), so the NFL decided to change it. (Side note: the back half of said tradition is that we will eventually be screwed by the rule change. It hasn't happened yet, but look forward to a big game where we score a TD on the first possession of OT and go on to lose.) I actually liked the Bills' proposal of a 15-minute OT, with sudden death afterwards if still tied. Unfortunately, the NFL owners did not like that, so we got the current setup. I believe this change is just to take the existing playoff OT rule (post 13 seconds) and apply it to the regular season as well. IMO, the OT problems stem from it being too easy to score a TD. I think football works best when it's hard but not ludicrous to score a TD, which isn't exactly where we're at these days. And even though the pendulum swung a bit towards the defense last year, it's hard to imagine it'll keep going that way very long. In any case, here's what I'd like to see for OT rules: Regular season: No overtime, sucker! We play regulation and if it's tied, you each get a tie. Don't like it? Try to win in regulation. (Note: this is BY FAR the best option from a player safety perspective.) Playoffs: Play a 15 minute OT, then go to sudden death if needed.

That's at least supposed to be the point - they want teams to choose to kick the ball short of the endzone so that we fans get to see actual kick returns. TBD if it'll happen or not. I suspect most coaches will do the CYA move and kick into the endzone anyway.

This is mostly where I'm at as well. I'm just sick of seeing the other team's players make huge plays and our guys fall short. And it's not all about investment or draft capital, either. Kincaid was a first round pick and came up short in the clutch. (Yes, it was a tough catch attempt; but that's his job. I'm with the poster who called it a 6/10 in NFL difficulty.) Diggs cost a first round pick and got 2 big contracts, and came up incredibly short in the clutch the previous year. As long as we have Josh Allen, we're going to be in the playoffs most or all years. I want to see a playoff run where the guys around Allen make those difficult catches when it's on the line. Or I would also accept them making so many great catches early on that the game turns into a rout and we win handily.

Interesting, thanks for posting. I watched the first clip and found it interesting. I'd love to hear a similar accounting from the D-line coach, Babich, and McD, but obviously that's never going to happen publicly. My question is, what's to be done about it? It's a bit of a bummer that Groot ends the clip basically saying that he's not happy with how he played but he'd probably do it the same way next time. (Anyone feel free to correct me if I misinterpreted.) Like, I'm seeing a really good diagnosis of the problem, which is a great start, but not much in the way of solving the problem.

I think I'll be on this crusade for the rest of my life as a football fan. Agree with everything you said, and I'd like to add... how is anyone sure exactly who the "BPA" is at any given pick???? This isn't Madden, where every player has an overall rating distilled down to a single, easily-comparable number. Projecting college prospects involves massive amounts of guesswork. If it didn't, we wouldn't see 1st round busts or Day 3 stars. Even if it was Madden, how confident are you that an 81 overall is truly better than an 80 overall at a different position? (And side note, even in Madden the first guy might be an 81 in someone else's scheme but only a 77 in yours. And even at the same position, I'll take a fast 80 over a slow 81 all day, especially at the skill positions.) Even if you're sure the 81 is better than the 80 today, how will they compare in 2, 3, 4 years? It's the job of draftniks to grade and rank players, I get it. But so many fans get caught up in these highly subjective and highly inaccurate grades and ranks, as though they're scientifically proven to be 100% right all the time. I'll put it another way: I'm pretty sure I know the BPA between Travis Hunter and "anyone who'll be available at our pick", and it's Hunter. Feel good about that one. But that's not the decision that'll be on the table for Beane & the Bills. It'll be more like choosing between 2-5 guys, all of whom will have essentially the same draft grade. (Probably early 2nd round.) Maybe a guy with a higher grade will fall in the draft, and the Bills will either trade up for him or sprint their draft card in when they get on the clock. But I think that's pretty much the exception, not the norm.

Hopefully no guaranteed $$, because he sucks.

I have always been pro-Gilliam. Glad he’s coming back!

Poyer yes, but IIRC the mood was mostly positive about the Hyde signing. I had never heard of him at the time, but I remember a lot of posters in the FA thread loving the signing and saying he was always around the ball in GB regardless of where he lined up. For the record, I’ve never heard of this Darick Forrest guy either. But like @Logic, I’m very willing to give our FO the benefit of the doubt on pro safety prospects.

I doubt it. Palmer will likely never have as good an opportunity as he did last year, and he put up 580 yards and 1 TD. I think he can (will?) put up better numbers for us, but if he had #1 talent I think we would’ve seen it last year. I’m pretty whelmed by this signing, which is to say in the middle. Here’s what I like: -He’s 25 and could still have his career year ahead of him -He seems to mostly play X - this should let Coleman play Z and help 2 positions I’m still totally on board with drafting a receiver early if that’s the best value.

I agree with this, and I stand by my earlier post. There’s room for improvement on Allen’s end, but I still think we’d see a bigger statistical impact with different players being targeted on those deep shots.

He's a free agent. Personally I expect him to be back on a small raise.

My all time WR group of guys in my lifetime as a fan: Moss & Megatron outside, Jerry Rice in the slot. Megatron was the biggest WR in the league, almost the fastest, maybe the best route runner, and had incredible hands whether the catch was contested or not. He's basically the perfect WR you'd construct in a lab. If his career was longer and/or he played on better teams, there could've been a real argument for him as best ever. As is, he's still easily on the short list for guys you'd want for one game or one season. I agree with most of this. I liked our offense a lot last year, but pre-Cooper it showed it had a real weakness, and the addition of Cooper helped but didn't fully address it. And "everybody eats" can work just as well with more receiving talent, provided that receiving talent doesn't have a Diggs-type attitude. I would argue it works better: If the defense really has to account for a guy who'll otherwise feast on them, then that opens things up for everyone else. So hypothetically, DK would either be feasting on bad/dumb/cocky teams, or putting up low numbers but freeing up Shakir et al for big production. Until I'm proven wrong, I will maintain that Allen's deep ball numbers will look a lot better if/when we get him better deep ball targets. I'm of the opinion that the pass catcher has way more to do with deep ball success than he does with short or intermediate catches. Just think about it: On every deep ball, the QB releases the ball when the receiver is maybe 10-30 yards away from the catch point. And yeah, we've all seen some truly uncatchable balls from Allen and others, but a lot of the "bad passes" we've seen are IMO bad adjustments by the WR, or inability of the WR to leverage his body against the defender, etc.

Agree with both of these statements. I think Kincaid’s best football is ahead of him. But Knox getting more PT wouldn’t be a problem in and of itself, and Z. Richardson might benefit from a real opportunity. Given age and contract, I wouldn’t expect to throw much more into the trade if I was the Bills. Kincaid has to be worth about a 2nd rounder right now IMO. And I don’t think Metcalf is worth a 1st rounder.

One other thing to add on the Brees comparison front: Brees is probably the most accurate QB in NFL history. If he's not #1, he's at least close to it. Allen's accuracy is quite good at this point, but I don't think he'll ever get on the same level as Brees, and that's fine. We shouldn't need our reigning MVP to turn into the 1st or 2nd most accurate QB of all time. Personally, I think completion % is a decent but not great metric for QB play and offensive success. I certainly don't want Allen's to be on the low end. (Which, these days, is probably anything around 60% or lower.) If he threatens his career high next year, that's probably a good thing, but it's far from the only path to success. This past year, we had a ton of WR screens and a few designed RB swing passes that represented easy completions and helped Allen's completion %. But we also saw defenses get better at defending them as the year went on. If we kept hammering them all year, Allen's completion % might have been even higher, but with a TON of completions for 1-3 yards that didn't help the offense.

…in some, but not all, of the measurements. If you aced your exams in math and science, but didn’t take the exams in history or language, is that straight A’s?

I know it’s unofficial, but the point of RAS is to blend all of the athletic testing into 1 number. So how can he have an “unofficial 10.0 pending agility drills”? Isn’t that like saying, “I got a prefect score on the SAT, pending the math section”?

Assuming Cook plays for the Bills next year (with or without a new contract), I totally agree. I would say 5th round or higher is allowable, but no RBs in the 4th or earlier. I don’t care if the guy available in the late 4th has a high 3rd round grade and is sticking out on the board. Those guys come along every other year.

I see your point, but it doesn’t move the needle for me personally. 2 things: 1. We’ve all seen games where, down the stretch, one team’s defense is completely unable to stop the opposing offense. In those games, I think you’d see a conversion rate more like 40-50%, which I want no part of. 2. Again, I like watching special teams, and I think the game is more fun when special teams matter. I know some people disagree. But for me, even if doing 4th and long gets you to a good outcome from a game design perspective, it still makes the game less fun to watch for me.