Cash

In the whole league!

They wear cool robes (red & blue, of course), talk about the direction of the team... and of course they perform the Initiation Ceremony whenever a guy is signed or called up from the practice squad.

Jimmy Spags! Great to see you're still on top of your game. Go get it, buddy!

I mean, it was cool and all, but it took one heck of a contested catch on the jump ball to work. I'm not sure it's "brilliant" so much as, "our high school has a tall dude who can jump high... let's run a fake punt with an underhand throw so that he can outjump everyone for the catch."

Well, I was right that we'd have fewer captains this year, but I didn't see it going to this extreme. I wonder if we'll get to know who's on the "leadership council"?

I've been seeing a bunch of other teams releasing their announcements of team captains, and I'm jealous now. What's taking the Bills so long? Need a couple recounts on the votes? My guesses are below. Of note, McDermott went with 6 team captains from 2017-2019, then 7 in 2020, 8 in 2021, 9 in 2022, and back to 8 last year. I feel like we might be back to a lower number this year with all the incumbent captains departing? Offense -Allen and Dawkins are locks IMO, although Dawkins hasn't been a captain since 2020 I think he's such a veteran leader he's gotta be one this year. -Mack Hollins. Everyone on the Bills appears to be obsessed with this guy. He might also count as a special teams captain. -Dalton Kincaid? Defense -Bernard. He's the QB of the defense. Edmunds was a team captain basically every year till he left. Now that Bernard is the established starter, he'll get the C. -Von Miller has been a captain each of the last 2 years. Hard for me to think they take it away this year. -Benford? Special Teams -Mack Hollins? (see above) -Casey Toohill?

Terrible analogy. This is a leader asking for input from his front-line people, and doing it in a way that makes honest feedback more likely. I've seen plenty of leaders who have no clue how things are on the front lines of whatever they're leading, and it's not a good look. Granted, some of them are able to offset that weakness with strengths in other areas, but the best leaders have those other strengths AND encourage feedback from their front-line people.

Agreed on Johnathan. Seems like a calculated move, combined with putting Clayton on non-return IR.

This is pretty much the ideal model for where McD should be on gamedays, IMO. Not directly calling the plays, but working with Babich and jumping in as needed.

I watched a couple episodes of Hard Knocks last year (guess which ones, haha) and I came away pretty unimpressed with McDaniel's leadership. That's not to say that those 2 weeks are reflective of everything, and also not to say that he can't get better at leadership. But based on what I've seen so far, I don't fear him staying in the division. Having said that, they could do a lot worse. McDaniel's offensive schemes are legit. Yeah, our issue is the playoffs has mostly been everyone but Josh Allen taking turns choking - including the whole defense as a collective. That and some bad injury luck. We've been INCREDIBLE down the stretch of regular seasons under McDermott. Usually paired with a good start, and a serious lull sometime in October or early November.

This one's worth a read. Magary has lost a lot on his fastball, and I'm not wild about his breaking stuff, but he only wrote about half of them this year. (Good for him bringing in help instead of mailing it in.) The author of this one, Victoria Zeller, is from Buffalo and a Bills fan, and did a great job IMO.

Hyde: Very promising DB in GB, but didn't have a true position. Played some outside CB, some nickel, some safety. Signed for 5 years/$30 million - decent money but probably about average or a little lower for safeties at the time. Made the jump to Pro Bowler and All-Pro with us. Poyer: Less known than Hyde when we signed him. Like Hyde, was drafted as a CB initially. Signed for 4 years/$13 million - that's extremely low-end money for a starting safety at the time. Made a huge leap with us, also to Pro Bowl and All-Pro. Tre White: Highly regarded college CB, 1st round pick. Serious pedigree but CBs picked at #27 overall aren't expected to make All-Pro, and White did twice. Maybe this was more about talent scouting than development, but IMO it's probably a mix of both. Taron Johnson: 4th round pick. Has been a plus starter at nickel since his rookie year. Second team All-Pro last year. Levi Wallace: UDFA. Moved into the starting lineup as a rookie, gave us 3.5 years as a solid starter. Dane Jackson: 7th round pick. Started 28 games in 4 years and was a solid backup in the rest of the games. Christian Benford: 6th round pick. "God send find." Maybe. Or maybe there's a trend here? I say there's a trend. Anyway, started 5 games as a rookie and won the full-time starting job in year 2. Expected to have another great year as a full-time starter this year. You are correct that there are some misses as well - Elam certainly counts even if he goes on to have a good career (which I personally think he will). Drafting a CB in the first round, you'd hope to have gotten more out of him entering year 3 than we've actually gotten. But even so: Hamlin and Cam Lewis are fine depth players, which I think is still a plus when you consider they were a 6th round pick and a UDFA. Ja'Marcus Ingram looks like at least another fine depth player, and that's a win for a UDFA. Siran Neal wasn't great, but the few times he had to play due to injury, he didn't get us killed, and that's at least par for a 5th-round pick. I don't know other team's rosters the way I know the Bills' roster, but I'm confident that the above is one of the better NFL resumes in terms of finding and developing young talent in the secondary. They don't need to be 100% hits to still be the best in the league, and I think McD and staff are either the best or right up there with a few select others. I'm hoping that keeps up this year as well, because on paper our safeties look pretty rough. I would argue that to date, McD's 2 biggest successes are Hyde and Poyer. But there haven't been other big hits at safety yet. I imagine part of the reason is that Hyde and Poyer almost never came off the field, so the in-game developmental opportunities weren't there (except for 2022, when Hyde got hurt and Hamlin was an okay starter until he died). Rapp is old enough that it's hard for me to think he'll make a jump at this point in his career, but stranger things have happened. Mike Edwards is a year removed from where Hyde & Poyer were when they signed with us - maybe there's a chance he makes a jump? Rapp [EDIT: I meant Cole Bishop] has high draft pedigree, and I'm expecting him to be a solid starter for multiple years, but given his injury, this may not be one of those years. It's also not too late for Hamlin to make a jump to plus starter or better, although I'm just happy he's still around at this point. And then of course, there's Cine. I'm certainly not counting on getting anything out of him, but I'm confident that our coaching staff has about the best chance of any in the league.

That’s also my favorite NFL quote of all time. Do you happen to remember where you heard/read it? I think I first heard of it on the old KSK blog, but I’m not sure.

Now that we know the initial 53-man roster, and the practice squad is set (possibly pending Jalen Virgil), it's prediction time. This is the time every year that I make my one (1) prediction for the Bills regular season. My track record is pretty good - I'm generally +/- 1 win from the Bills' actual total. I don't go game-by-game; instead I try to look holistically at the Bills as a team for the full season. I do take overall strength of schedule into account, but upsets happen both ways, so I think it's futile to predict the results of each week well in advance. Likewise, injuries happen, guys have big games here and there, etc. There's some averaging out, but overall a really good team tends to win more than a fairly good team, which tends to win more than a mediocre team, and so on. So with that preamble aside, I'll go on record: I'm predicting 11 wins from the Bills this year. I also think that takes the AFC East and gives us a puncher's chance in the playoffs.

I'm glad to see this. Andy Reid can manage to call plays in-game without hurting his game management, but 1.) that wasn't true in his Philly days, and 2.) I don't think McDermott's on Reid's level right now. I'm glad both that McD will have less on his plate in-game, and that we have a new voice/perspective calling the plays. Plus, it gives us the option of having McDermott jump in to assist, in a way that we don't get if McD is already calling every play.

Yeah, the pandemic-era changes to the practice squad have been universally positive, IMO. Having 16 spots with 6(?) allowed veterans means there's room for all of these: -Guys who aren't ready to play now, but might be with a year or two of practice and development, which was always the intent of the PS. -Young guys who just barely didn't make the team, but are probably just about equally as good as the last few guys on your roster, and still have room for growth. -Replacement-level veterans who aren't quite good enough to make the 53, but who used to be immediate phone calls when someone got hurt. This is a win-win, because the team doesn't have to wait for the veteran to learn or re-learn the playcalls on the fly, and the veteran gets paid something while waiting for the call-up. Plus, I suspect the veteran is more likely to be in game shape at the time of the call-up if he's been practicing with the team the whole time. Allowing the in-season call-ups is also a win-win. The player getting called up both gets an actual game paycheck (pretty big jump over the PS check), and gets featured in a real game - big opportunity to showcase himself. The team gets massive help weathering short-term injuries without having to put guys on IR, and there's less pressure for guys to play hurt. This is massive when it comes to player safety, longevity, etc.

Same! As others on this thread have pointed out, McD and staff have an excellent track record of coaching up DBs. It wouldn't be crazy if a high pick flamed out somewhere else and had a renaissance with us. If the athletic profile is still there, Cine could potentially work out in a big way. But I say IF the athletic profile is still there, because frankly a broken leg is a big deal, especially since it was a compound fracture. Not everyone recovers and keeps the same speed, burst, ability to change direction, etc. Cine looked pretty spry in that preseason highlight posted upthread, so that's a good sign, but I'm certainly not counting this as a hatched chicken.

Slightly off-topic, but I think Allen has a pretty strong chance to win MVP this year. Obviously a lot has to go right for that to happen, but the national perception/narrative is set up in Allen’s favor. With us losing Diggs/Davis/et al, the team is expected to take a step back on both offense and defense. IF the Bills keep winning at the same pace as the last few years, it’s probably because Allen is putting up big numbers - totals, efficiency, or both. In that scenario, the MVP voters will tend to give Allen 100% of the credit for the team still being good, and likely will be writing about how Allen is making a bunch of nobodies look good.

He was always on defense, as a DT. This is the gold medalist wrestler, right? Not the converted rugby player (who is injured).

What weapons do I have in this scenario? Assuming he has none. If even footing, the answer is no.

Seriously. If - heaven forbid - Allen got a season-ending injury in September or October, at that point we might as well roll out the Nooch and Anthony Brown. Would be ugly to watch but we’d be picking in the top 10 most likely. (Even with McD and all the players trying their best to win every game.) I’m overall pretty optimistic about this year’s team, or at least will be if we ever get a stretch of good health. But let’s be real: minus Allen, this is not a realistic contender even with a good backup QB. If - heaven forbid - Allen got a season-ending injury in November or December, AND we were in a good place record-wise, then I’d be inclined to sign Talleywacker if he’s still out there, or trade for this year's version of Josh Dobbs or something. The chances of the team getting hot and/or lucky are worth it at at that point.

I disagree. Looking at the first angle, it looks to me like as part of Coleman's catching motion, he starts turning his head from the QB towards the S. Once his helmet is facing the S, it looks like Coleman takes his eye off the ball. Which makes sense, because the S was coming in for a massive hit, and it would've been fully legal if Coleman had the ball in his hands when they met. Luckily for us, he only took a minor shot - both because Coleman was protecting his body, and because the S wisely let up once the ball was dropped. In other words, whether intentional or not, it was a Business Decision by Coleman. Even for a rookie, I have zero problem with a business decision in preseason. With that said, I'm also glad Coleman is calling it a drop himself and saying he needs to get that ball. That's the right (winning) attitude, and absolutely what you should be saying publicly, even if you don't mean it. It was a bad but catchable throw, and even under the circumstances I think Coleman could've potentially caught it and still had a split second to protect himself from the incoming killshot. Thanks for posting the clip!

Based on those definitions and McD’s history, it’s Grade 2. Grade 1 would fall under McD’s “day to day”. “Week to week” almost always means out 2+ weeks, but not much more than a month.

IMO, we are technically a Super Bowl contender now. By which I mean, I think we're likely to win our division, which puts us in the playoffs. From there, we have a realistic chance to beat every other team in the playoffs, especially if someone else beat the Chiefs for us. Every NFL team has a realistic chance to beat every other NFL team on any given Sunday, and Josh Allen would be the best player on the field in any matchup except the Chiefs. Not saying our chances are the best (they're not), but worse teams have definitely gotten hot at the right time and made/won the Super Bowl. For me personally, here's the best case scenario for this year. IMO, if all of these happened, we'd be one of the 2-3 teams most likely to win it all. (We're maybe in the 5-7 range now?) I don't really think all of them will happen this year, but I'm going to hope for it until proven otherwise: Team gets healthy and stays healthy all year Most of the young guys take steps forward Milano comes back in late November and looks like his old self Von Miller returns to something like he looked pre-injury By year's end, we wind up with acceptable or better safety play - maybe Bishop is ready to be a + starter by then James Cook cures his dropsies Brady turns out to be a + as a coordinator - scheming guys open, having a few "unstoppable" plays for those key 3rd/4th downs, countering opponent adjustments, etc Josh Allen looks like he did in 2020 (Note: I think this one is happening, regardless of the rest)

I’m with you on KJ. It’s hard to imagine him getting a roster spot over Solomon (if healthy), who’s younger and just started a cheap 4-year contract. The Bills kept KJ on the 53 all of last year, mostly inactive, because they were worried about losing him. No way they expose Solomon to waivers. I expect that Beane will try to deal KJ around cutdown time, because it’s hard to see the numbers working out to keep 6 DEs unless someone goes on IR.