finn

J.P. Losman just needed to develop. Leif Larsen would dominate at DT. Corbin Lacina would be the answer at guard. Josh Allen was JaMarcus Russell.

To make his point that losing is not acceptable, Diggs will miss mini-camp, training camp, and the regular season. Only then will the team learn how to win.

Just for an intellectual exercise, nothing more, would it be plausible to trade Diggs and sign Hopkins, if Diggs went into full Diva mode?

Agree. Unless he's doing quiet things away from the ball that keeps the QB from throwing his direction. Every time he appears onscreen, he's blowing the coverage. Just good enough to make it close, but I don't recall any wins from him. And yet, they keep bringing him back.

Basham and Settle are the weakest players of this group. Too early to cut Basham.

B+ contract for a B+ player.

Yeah, but Saffold was a five-alarm fire. You could argue he cost the Bills the season, with his play against the Bengals. By then, it was too late to do anything, but his incompetence was clear from the start. Restructure contracts, trade a player, even snag a warm body off another team's practice squad, if the backups were even worse than Saffold. (Another indictment of Beane, by the way.) Well, it's all water under a dead horse at this point...

It was plain to everyone, especially the coaching staff, I'm sure, that Saffold was beyond awful, yet McBeane sat on their hands all season. Why not give up trade for a competent guard? They didn't need excellent, only adequate. They brought in Brown and Beasley off the street; why not a guard? To my knowledge, no reporter ever asked Beane why he let Saffold start all season long. His actions after the season show he realized he messed up. How may guards did he draft and sign? 15?

You may be right, but how do you interpret Diggs behavior as anything but a self-indulgent pout? Is it a form of leadership? If so, how does that work? Allen and McDermott say he's just showing that losing isn't ok, but I don't see how posting snark does anyone any good. (To be fair, I don't recall what exactly he said, but it wasn't positive.) To put it another way, what exactly does Diggs want the Bills to do? Apologize?

Reasons to be optimistic about the season: --Many key players are in their prime, including Allen, Diggs, Davis, Dawkins, Harris, Knox, Oliver, Milano, and White. --Oliver is in his contract year, so he may finally live up to his draft status. --Allen, Davis, Poyer, Hyde, and Brown are all healthy, and White is another year past his ACL injury. --Knox has had a year to recover from losing his brother, and the team has had the offseason to recover from Hamlin, Tops, etc. --Beane has done a good job upgrading the depth, adding Poona, Edwards, Sherfield, Harty, Murray, and Shell, as well as bringing back key veterans like Lawson and Martin. --McDermott takes over DC duties. Conceivably, this could be a negative, but he won the head coach job because he was a very effective DC, so odds are he'll do great. --Dorsey, Kromer, Smiley, Babich, and Brady all have a year's worth of experience with their respective charges, which can only help. --Last year's rookies all look ready to contribute more than last year, especially Elam, Cook, Benford, and Shakir. --This year's rookies should make valuable contributions, and Kincaid, Torrence, and Williams may end up starting. --They are no longer the media darlings anymore, which might take some of the pressure off. Reasons for pessimism: --Diggs' prima donna act may get worse and become a distraction. --They now need to get past not just the Chiefs, but also the Bengals, Dolphins, Jets, and maybe Ravens. --They have no real backup for Dawkins. --Their pass rush will likely continue to be mediocre until Miller returns. --The offensive line may have two new starters and will take time to jell. --Kincaid, Harty, Shorter, and Sheffield might not add enough juice, even taken together. As you see, reasons for optimism outnumber reasons for pessimism. But it's only May!

Sorry, didn't mean to imply you were claiming Bernard was an upgrade. I was just saying it's ironic that smaller, faster, more athletic LBs are the new trend, and Bernard is just smaller.

Yeah, but Bernard is smaller, slower, and less athletic than the guy he's supposed to replace. Quite an upgrade!

Why let facts get in the way of opinion? Posters here made up their mind well before the night in question.

Not to trash Davis completely. He did have that magnificent TD where he wrenched the ball away from Minkah Fitzpatrick. That was All-Pro stuff. But I'll never forgot how he dropped that 65-yard Allen bomb at the end of the Jets game that hit him in stride on the numbers. He's better than a #3 receiver but not reliable or talented enough to be a true #2.

Well, remember last year when he said he had been lifting all offseason and had put on five+ pounds of muscle? I was optimistic then. Less so now.

Dorsey threw a fit because McKenzie caught a pass with seconds left on like the 16-yard line, and, for reasons known only to him, elected to stay in bounds to end the game. This is after he dropped a lateral to mar an otherwise excellent Dorsey game against the Rams and before other drops and idiot moves on McKenzie's part. Every coordinator deals with execution failures, but overcoming the loss of the short game due to Allen's injury, on top of the stunning incompetence of the slot receiver and two O-linemen, is asking a lot, especially for a first-year guy like Dorsey.

Dorsey was doing well until Allen got hurt and the short-passing game was compromised. Meanwhile, he had turnstiles at guard and tackle and unreliable receivers besides Diggs. If you want to point fingers, point them at Beane for signing Saffold and putting his faith in Brown, McKenzie, and Davis.

A little worrisome is an understatement. Brown and "struggle" are synonymous; plus, he's been out for significant stretches both seasons he's played, and his replacement, Quessenberry, is the one who got Allen hurt with a blown block against the Jets. And who's behind the Quessenberry? OT is the only glaring weakness on the roster at this point. I really thought Beane would bring in a veteran to truly compete with Brown. He said he would.

Beane said he planned to bring in a "veteran" to challenge Brown (in the context of giving Brown a vote of confidence). Easy to see Brown struggling again. He struggled as a rookie, did well for a stretch, got Covid, and struggled some more. Last year, he struggled most of the year (yeah, yeah, back surgery). Struggling is what he does. RT is easily the biggest question mark on the roster right now. Thinking of Bates over there is the only way I sleep at night.

I didn't consider moving Bates to right tackle and having Brown be the swing tackle. If Brown hasn't improved, that might be the best option.

I've been looking for Beane to add a veteran free agent, but so far it's all guards all the time. As you say, Brown might improve, but then again he might not, and he might get injured yet again. Quessenberry is just a warm body and would need help from Knox on virtually all plays.

Not sure it's "they." Could be just Allen, who prefers going long, even if it's low percentage. That's why I think they were hoping for Addison in the draft. Last year, there seemed to be a disconnect between Beane and Dorsey, with Beane bending over backwards to secure a receiving back (settling on Hines) that Dorsey appeared to ignore. Or, again, it could have been Allen. He didn't want to check down, didn't even want to throw to Knox. He wanted to go deep to Diggs, and things didn't click very well when teams figured out they should double team him. So is Kincaid a check-down option or a deep threat? He may be something in between, like Shakir, Crowder, and Beasley. I'm just hoping someone will emerge as deep threat. Most likely possibility: Davis has a resurgence.

You know, the Kincaid-Torrence picks may be the most significant combo picks since Allen-Edmunds, in terms of what they allow the team to do. Think about it from the perspective of the opposing defensive coordinator. If you put in a linebacker to cover Kincaid, you're playing right into the Bills offensive strengths. But if you bring a DB, you're now facing Damien Harris running behind Torrence and Brown (who is a terrific run blocker even if he mostly sucks at pass pro), with Knox blocking downfield and Kincaid at least getting in the way of some DBs. Taken together, Kincaid and Torrence have given the Bills a second dimension. Do the Bills get that? If they do, look for Beane to sign another power back soon.

I read that he had a lot of drops early in his career, disappointing many after being a highly recruited high school player. Then after that, he dropped very few. Also that his draft stock was held down by his built-up speed, limiting his game to a Gabe-Davis deep threat type player. Maybe he could replace Davis if Davis continues to drop the ball in clutch situations.

My fear is that Beane is overcompensating there, too--for letting Wyatt Teller go to the Browns. Will he stick with Brown even if the evidence continues to pile up that he's over his head? I'm trying to be optimistic, but visions of Brown being ragdolled by Melvin Ingram in the AFC championship game are hard to shake.