Cash

Love the topic! My dumb takes: 1) Kincaid - Good pick. Possibly great if he hits his ceiling. 2) Torrence - Good pick; will start every year of his rookie deal if he stays healthy 3) Williams - I honestly have no idea. 4) Shorter - Mediocre pick. Feels like he winds up a core special teamer for a while and maybe has like 1 game where he contributes as a receiver. But we're getting to the point in the draft where that's a win for the team. 7) Broeker - Good pick, based solely on there being 5 waiver claims for him. He probably lasts in the NFL through his rookie deal, which is a definite win in the 7th round. 7) Austin - Good pick, based solely on him getting claimed off waivers. I'm less confident he plays out his whole rookie deal though.

True. But on the flip side, many of those guys regress back to their average once they get paid. Getting a monster year of production, then a 3rd round comp pick, can wind up easing the pain a lot.

True, but he's also shown pretty much nothing as a receiver, both with the Cardinals and in this preseason. I don't mind him being on the practice squad - he's fast even by NFL standards, and fast guys have some value even when they can't really play. (See also Foster, Robert.) But I never bought the training camp hype for a second. I think part of the problem was that once he got a positive review in a couple of camp reports, fans (who've heard of him, and find they're rooting for him even if they can't put their finger on why) started tweeting at reporters asking about Isabella. From there, reporters started asking about Isabella in press conferences with McDermott & Allen. The answers were pretty standard generically positive stuff, but gave the reports some positive-sounding quotes to include in their articles, tweets, etc. Then the fans read the articles and become convinced that 1.) Isabella was charging up the depth chart, and 2.) Isabella would immediately be signed by another team if we cut him. On the PS front itself, I'm happy about the Kirksey signing. He takes one of our 6 veteran spots, but won't be there for long.

Agreed. Wilson looked decent in the last preseason game. Kind of a Gilliam lite.

I was fine with the Rousseau/Basham combo at the time. Basically thinking that outside of the top 10, DEs are a very high risk proposition - if a pass rushing DE is a sure thing, he gets drafted in the top 10. If a guy has red flags but could be amazing, he still usually goes no later than the teens. So my thought was that drafting 2 DEs high gave us a decent chance of at least 1 of them hitting. And I'm very optimistic about Rousseau being a hit, so by that logic the strategy was a success overall. Not a big success, obviously. (If I'd done any serious draft homework that year and knew how good a prospect Humprey was, I think I would've felt differently.) With that said, it's still fair and accurate to look at the Basham pick on its own and judge it as a failure.

Exactly. Props to the Bills for having the guts, but this is unquestionably an admission of failure on their part. A 2nd round pick at a premium position with 2 years of cost control on his contract is an asset on paper. If the Bills thought there was a realistic chance that Boogie would live up to his potential, they wouldn't let him go for just a late round pick swap. Tentatively agreed, but it ultimately matters whether the Bills are right or wrong. If Boogie puts up 10 sacks for the Giants this year, the Bills should be heavily criticized for essentially giving him away. (Now I think it's unlikely that happens, but that's why they play the games.) As one of the last "Isaiah Hodgins can be a good player" holdouts, it was a bummer watching him break out last year while we were stuck with Jake Kumerow as our top outside WR backup. And obviously no Bills fan was psyched to see Wyatt Teller turn into an all-star in Cleveland. I don't expect a repeat here with Basham, but if it did happen? The Bills would and should be raked over the coals at that point. On the other hand, if Boogie is completely invisible for the next 2 years, then I salute the Bills for admitting their mistake and moving on.

Yeah, the hottest Hamlin takes I’ve seen so far are the ones in this thread, and even those (yours and others) are only saying “it’s not a guarantee his roster spot is safe”. I think your second paragraph is spot on. If it comes down to a situation where he has to play (whether that’s special teams, or on defense due to injury), that’s when they’ll really have to make a decision. The guy we’ve seen in preseason? Probably not good enough to put out there as a full time starter. But if he’s truly a liability at that point, I think they’ll figure out a injury designation of some sort and IR-return him. Of course, the best case scenario is that with more time, practice, and game experience, Hamlin returns to form and it’s a win all around. I can’t imagine how hard that is mentally, but we’ve seen players make crazy comebacks before.

I generally agree with this take. One other factor: Publc Relations. Whether one likes it or not, PR will 100% be a factor in any roster decision on Hamlin. Basically everyone in the US knows who Hamlin is. Him being cut (as opposed to IR’d or put on one of those “Reserve” lists) would be a low-end national news story. And likely would invite criticism (fair or unfair) from the same human interest reporters who’ve been covering all of Hamlin’s charity events. I’m not saying he can’t or won’t be released outright. But it would surprise me, and I can’t imagine it happens without being accompanied by a wistful press release about how the organization is still behind him 100% or something.

I’m drafting Darrynton Evans in fantasy this year. I’ll just have to figure out a way to get him on the field. Seriously though, that run was sick, even accounting for the backups he was playing against. The balance on display was phenomenal.

Agreed. (With the obvious caveat that better O-line play will help any QB, pretty much across the board.) In Allen's breakout year, he set his career high for completion % with 69.2%, then dropped down to a still-respectable 63.3% each of the last 2 years. IMO one of the differences is that "Breaking Out Josh" was more willing to take the easy throws and checkdowns if his first read wasn't there. Once he became established as "Franchise QB Josh", he had the caché to follow his natural instincts more: Namely, extend plays and keep looking for the home run no matter what. I don't mind that he has that mindset, I just think he needs to mature a bit and take the easy stuff when it's there. And save the hero ball for key moments rather than being the default mode of play. There's nothing wrong with throwing the ball away on 1st or 2nd and 10 or less if it'll avoid a sack or QB hit.

How about something catchy, like Big Smooth Crock of Butter?

I’d argue that he caught teams off guard precisely because he WASN’T much of a threat, but point taken. Those were some lean years when we were getting excited about our FA signings at FB. (And yes, I was one of the people excited when we signed Gash.) FWIW, I think Gilliam would be much more productive in the passing game than Gash if given the opportunity, and wouldn’t mind seeing him get a few more looks in the pass game. He’s nowhere near the Larry Centers level though - Centers is arguably the best receiving back of all time, RBs included.

Did you mean Larry Centers? Because Gash was the epitome of an old school FB - phenomenal lead blocker in the run game, and not much else.

I tend to agree with this, just with less certainty as to their plan. But it’s very plausible that they went in to the draft expecting to trade down and still get their top target for an Edmunds replacement. And even that wouldn’t have been Plan A. I believe Beane when he says the plan is always to go into the draft with all holes filled, so you can truly pick BPA. My take? Beane and McDermott both have a lot of business training and mindset. I think Beane & co. do a cost-benefit analysis at the start of the offseason, and it probably looks at reasonable best and worst case scenarios for every position. They might have already decided to change up the scheme a bit to take some responsibility off of the MLB. (There were some fairly credible reports that Frazier left because he didn’t agree with McDermott’s vision for the defense.) If that’s the case, maybe they figured it’s no longer a critical position, and they could afford to roll out A. J. Klein as a worst case scenario. Or maybe they struck out on FAs because they weren’t willing to meet asking price or guarantee a starting job or something.

I remember that clip! Watkins made the DB look foolish. The problem though - and why I wasn’t impressed - is that the DB in question was a camp body no one had ever heard of, with maybe a 1% chance of making the team. I’m not nearly a good enough “scout” to learn anything from practice highlights, so I usually don’t bother. But I do enjoy reading recaps, especially from beat reporters who watch every practice that media are allowed at. When someone stands out over the course of the whole day, that might actually mean something. Especially if it’s day after day.

Is it, though? How do they compare in terms of highest-paid DTs or % of cap? Especially over the first 3 years of EdO’s deal, since the Bills can get out of it easily at that point.

So was Ruben Brown! There was even speculation (for years) that we were going to move him from LG to LT at some point. Some people thought we'd swap him and John Fina (then the LT, but thought to be better at G), but it never happened. Anyway, if Levitre doesn't count as a pure OG, neither should Brown.

Good post! I’ll push back on #1 though - 3rd round is usually too early to draft a special teamer, unless maybe it’s a dynamic returner. I know it’s a weak draft, and that might change things to some extent. But I strongly hope that he was drafted for his play on defense first and on ST second. Depth? We had a massive amount of injuries on D last year, and it showed.

Will do! PM me his number when you get a chance.

IMO Frazier has been running McD’s defense. I would be very surprised if we saw major changes on that front, even with a different play-caller in effect. And most teams’ actual base defense has been nickel for a while now - especially ours. Like I alluded, if one of our 3rd-round LBs becomes our big nickel (a la Shaq Thompson), then that guy has a clear path to a lot of playing time. But if both stay at LB proper? Only 1 spot available in our base D. And if both stay at OLB? Then we’re down to zero. For the record, I’m not worried about this pick. It’s a head scratcher today, but sometimes those head scratchers pan out. And even if not, the fact remains that you can’t hit on every pick. (For real, folks - look it up!) If we hit on picks 1 & 2, this draft is already a success - even if Williams is an abject bust.

Thanks! Could you please pass it on next time you two have brunch together?

Fair point. But in the other poster’s defense, it seems very unlikely that both Bernard and Williams play any significant amount of time next year, or probably at all. Obviously that could change if Milano gets hurt, or if one of them fills the big nickel role or something. We play 2 LBs the vast majority of the time. Milano is an every-down player. That leaves one spot of regular play time between Bernard, Williams, Klein, Dodson, or Spector.

BBB says he’ll be at OLB for now. This is a head-scratcher for me. Not considered a value pick. At OLB, doesn’t particularly fill a need either. I don’t really see the point here to be honest. BBB also said they thought about trading down, but would have had to move back further than they were comfortable with. My response: Learn to be more comfortable. You can always trade back up after trading down.

How are you feeling now?

IMO they don’t make this pick unless Dorsey has already sold them on his plan to run way more 2 TE sets. I’m reminded that last offseason, the OJ Howard signing prompted a lot of speculation that we’d see more 12 and less 11. That might actually happen in 2023.