IgotBILLStopay Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 (edited) Clearly without the deadcap overhang, aggressive FA signing and stellar draft, we are loads better. Here was our opening roster in 2018 (only had 52 players - then we added one other - I forgot who) QB (2): Nate Peterman, Josh Allen RB (5): LeSean McCoy, Chris Ivory, Marcus Murphy, Taiwan Jones, Patrick DiMarco WR (6): Kelvin Benjamin, Zay Jones, Andre Holmes, Jeremy Kerley, Ray-Ray McCloud, Robert Foster TE (4): Charles Clay, Jason Croom, Logan Thomas, Khari Lee OL (9): Dion Dawkins, Jordan Mills, Marshall Newhouse, Conor McDermott, John Miller, Vladimir Ducasse, Wyatt Teller, Russell Bodine, Ryan Groy DE (4): Jerry Hughes, Trent Murphy, Shaq Lawson, Eddie Yarbrough DT (4): Kyle Williams, Star Lotulelei, Harrison Phillips, Adolphus Washington LB (6): Lorenzo Alexander, Tremaine Edmunds, Matt Milano, Julian Stanford, Ramon Humber, Deon Lacey CB (5): Tre’Davious White, Vontae Davis, Phillip Gaines, Taron Johnson, Lafayette Pitts S (4): Micah Hyde, Jordan Poyer, Rafael Bush, Siran Neal ST (3): Stephen Hauschka, Colton Schmidt, Reid Ferguson Here is A very early 53 for 2019 (there will be 3-4 changes to this based on preferences, TC / injuries etc. - but about 49 of 53 should likely go through) - new ones for this season are bolded QB (3): Allen, Barkley, Jackson or Anderson RB (5): McCoy, Gore, Yeldon, Singletary, Murphy WR (7): Brown, Foster, Jones, Beasley, D. Williams, McKenzie, Roberts TE (3): Kroft, Knox, Croom OL (9): Morse, Ford, Dawkins, Nsekhe, Long, Spain, Teller, Feliciano, Waddle DE (4): Murphy, Lawson, Hughes, Yarbrough or D. Johnson DL (4): Phillips, Phillips, Oliver, Lotuleilei LB (6): Edmunds, Milano, Stanford, Joseph, Lorax, Lacey CB (5): T. White, K. Johnson, T. Johnson, L. Wallace, EJ Gaines S (4): Hyde, Poyer, Neal, Bush ST (3): Bojorquez (P), Haushka (K), Ferguson (LS) OL, RB and WR revamped. Am ready to go to war with that Offense roster unless a Julio Jones or someone like that emerges as a trade option. Defense (except Oliver and K. Johnson) remarkably similar to last year - so continuity will help us. The one area where we still need an upgrade is DE (am not fully sold on Lawson / Murphy / Yarbrough though Hughes remains a stud) hopefully 30 mill in cap room will go towards upgrading here. Possibilities: 1. A trade (Clowney?) Texans are shopping Clowney, but we should be interested only if he will agree to about 40-45 mill guaranteed (not Clark 63.5 m type money). 2. Post-draft potential cuts / trades to keep an eye on are Calais Campbell (Drafting Josh Allen makes parting with Campbell easier since cutting him saves the Jags 9.5 mill cap space - their cap situation is not fantastic and more likely, they can trade him - that will also save them 9.5 million and give them some compensation). Solomon Thomas (Drafting Bosa makes Thomas expendable). 3. Signing Ziggy Ansah Edited April 29, 2019 by IgotBILLStopay 8
Cash Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 On paper, looks better at every position except DE, P, and maybe DT (depending on how much you value Kyle’s leadership and also how good you think Oliver will be as a rookie. Remember, even most hall of famers aren’t pro bowlers their rookie years). Oh, and I guess K/LS are laterals as well, assuming Hauschka is healthy. But yeah, literally every other position loooks upgraded. 1
IgotBILLStopay Posted April 29, 2019 Author Posted April 29, 2019 (edited) 4 minutes ago, Cash said: On paper, looks better at every position except DE, P, and maybe DT (depending on how much you value Kyle’s leadership and also how good you think Oliver will be as a rookie. Remember, even most hall of famers aren’t pro bowlers their rookie years). Oh, and I guess K/LS are laterals as well, assuming Hauschka is healthy. But yeah, literally every other position loooks upgraded. Safety and LB are also similar, though I believe Joseph can be better than Humber. But otherwise, your assessment is spot on. QB is an improvement as well since Allen was not the starter for the 2018 opening roster. Edited April 29, 2019 by IgotBILLStopay
Cash Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 1 minute ago, IgotBILLStopay said: Safety and LB are also similar, though I believe Joseph can be better than Humber. But otherwise, your assessment is spot on. LB is easily better for me - even with Zo a year older, Edmunds in year 2 and Milano in year 3 should be enough better to counter that. Plus our backups last year were... not great, so even a 5th round pick stands to be an upgrade there. Safety i I may have overlooked. But at least we don’t expect the starters to be getting worse yet, and we did commit a low draft pick there.
MJS Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 The big difference is not having all that dead cap to weigh us down. We went out and spent money, adding depth almost everywhere.
BuffaloBillsGospel Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 Man the OL is night and day, secondary looks much improved also. This team is looking awesome, man Williams retired a year too early I think.
Inigo Montoya Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 (edited) Great post OP. On defense it looks like they added some experienced secondary depth, our only real loss, and it was a big one, was Kyle Williams retiring but we went out and got Ed Oliver in the draft. We'll see how that goes, but on paper it looks like nothing worse than standing pat on the league's 2nd ranked defense. We brought in the best return man in the league in Andre Roberts on special teams and have been adding free agents and draft picks who should hopefully improve on the coverage teams. McBeane dumped some good special teamers last year to clear up cap space for this year's off season. It looks like he is trying to restock the cupboards now with Senorise Perry, Mo Alexander, and our later round draft picks like Joseph. Having a healthy Hauschka back will be huge too. The offense is almost a completely new unit. Allen will step on the field this season with 7 or 8 out of the 10 players being new (we'll see if Dawkins can hold onto a spot on the line somewhere). Every new player looks like a clear up grade over last year's roster. Gotta be happy with that. We should see better offensive play all around It's not just upgrading the starters, we should have some solid depth when the injury bug inevitably bites. It looks like a real NFL roster for the first time in a while. Even better is that we are in great cap space shape to extend our new free agent players who have come in on one or two year prove it deals to long term contacts if they play great. Right now according to Sportrac, the Bills will have the fifth most cap space in the league next year with $71MM. We should be able to keep the young nucleus of this team together for a while. We will still have three years on Allen's rookie contract after this season to continue to upgrade the roster. I can see us being real contenders for a Super Bowl after this season if Allen continues to develop and Brady continues his decline. I think Beane has been on point since he got here with his plan; do whatever you have to do to get your franchise QB, build the trenches, and lastly, sprinkle in some great skill position players in free agent and the draft to push your team over the top. Edited April 29, 2019 by Inigo Montoya 1
ProcessYaDigg Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 20 minutes ago, Inigo Montoya said: Brady continues his decline. Decline??? as much as I wanna believe he's declining, he's just not. He's only getting older and still playing at an elite level. All we can hope is that he either breaks himself or just retires soon. Just because we all hate him and want his career to end doesn't mean he's declining.
BakersBills Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 kyle w wasnt that good last year, if oliver cant surpass that id be disappointed
ProcessYaDigg Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 I do have a feeling that we'll be adding Ziggy to this group, not Clowney. We won't overpay for Clowney. We'll settle for Ziggy and get the most out of him.
Inigo Montoya Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 4 minutes ago, Circlethewagon8404 said: Decline??? as much as I wanna believe he's declining, he's just not. He's only getting older and still playing at an elite level. All we can hope is that he either breaks himself or just retires soon. Just because we all hate him and want his career to end doesn't mean he's declining. I don't like Brady, but I have always respected his game. The Patriots won the Super Bowl last year with a power running game. Brady only had 570 pass attempts in the regular season, the lowest number of attempts in a season where he has played a full 16 games since 2010. Bill Belichick is the best coach in the league and will continue to game plan to hide Brady's decline like he did last year, but there is no doubt that Brady is no longer the QB he was even just 5 years ago. Can Brady still manage a game? Yep. Can Brady still work his magic on a game winning drive when he needs to? Yep. Can Brady sling the ball 50 times a week, game after game and win that way anymore? Nope. 3
ProcessYaDigg Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 15 minutes ago, Inigo Montoya said: I don't like Brady, but I have always respected his game. The Patriots won the Super Bowl last year with a power running game. Brady only had 570 pass attempts in the regular season, the lowest number of attempts in a season where he has played a full 16 games since 2010. Bill Belichick is the best coach in the league and will continue to game plan to hide Brady's decline like he did last year, but there is no doubt that Brady is no longer the QB he was even just 5 years ago. Can Brady still manage a game? Yep. Can Brady still work his magic on a game winning drive when he needs to? Yep. Can Brady sling the ball 50 times a week, game after game and win that way anymore? Nope. I agree that Belichick game plans around Brady, but I think he could still sling it 50 times per game if he wanted to. That's why he has so much longevity, because he doesn't have to pass it as much. Additionally, their run game has gotten way better over the years
Inigo Montoya Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 (edited) 59 minutes ago, Circlethewagon8404 said: I agree that Belichick game plans around Brady, but I think he could still sling it 50 times per game if he wanted to. That's why he has so much longevity, because he doesn't have to pass it as much. Additionally, their run game has gotten way better over the years If you can't directly link to the video it is on YouTube, copy and paste this into the YouTube search window; Patriots vs. Steelers Insane Final Minutes! | NFL Week 15 Highlights I have attached a video clip of the last few minutes of the Week 15 game last season against the Steelers. The game came down to a 4th and 15 in the Red Zone. Fast forward to the 10:00 mark in the video to see the start of the play. At 10:35 they isolate Brady on the replay with an end zone view. Watch how Brady releases the ball. Watch it twice. Brady does not throw a good ball. He does not step into the pass. He feels the pressure coming as T.J. Watt gets around the right tackle and bails out of the throw, throwing off his back foot while spinning away and then falls to the ground to avoid being hit even though Watt wouldn't have touched him on the play because Watt falls down. With him bailing on the throw like that the ball is a duck and is inaccurate. Game over. Tom Brady five years ago stands in the pocket, steps into that pass, takes the hit, and probably delivers a strike to Edelmann. You can tell from that play that he is thinking about taking that hit and basically quits on the play. He is hearing the footsteps now and it is starting to effect his play. Unanimous first ballot Hall of Famer, GOAT, married to a Brazilian super model, rich as Midas, but now at the end of his career and thinking about his health and his future quality of life. No shame in that. I really think this will be his last season. Edited April 29, 2019 by Inigo Montoya 1 1
d_wag Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 looks like you've omitted a couple key special team acquisitions in perry and alexander from your projected 53, i think they do make the squad and bump murphy and stanford or lacey from your projected 53 (murphy a shame but doesn't offer much value on ST, stanford and lacey both very replaceable and were part of the reason why the coverage team was so bad last year) . I also think yarborough will lose his spot to harold at DE and i think demarco will stick around again for his special teams value, bumping the WR group down to a more reasonable 6 (see ya mackenzie, he's been replaced by roberts). duke is certainly the fav for the 6th WR spot at this point, given they surely want to have someone with size in the grouping. it would be great if they could squeeze a very late pick or two in the trade market from the inevitable OL dumps (Sirles, Butler, Bodine, Vlad, and McDermott appear to be on the outside looking in and may have some value to outsiders). some like Lafayette Pitts but i agree with you that he misses the cut (didn't show enough as a gunner last year to warrant a spot, they need to get much better there, kevin johnson is good candidate there to help). injuries happen but shaping up that the late picks will start the year on the practice squad (johnson, johnson, and sweeney) if they get through waivers. that being said clear to see the improvements year on year across the roster, but would expect nothing less given the dozen and a half free agent signings and another top 10 pick. doesn't sound like beane will ever be in the comp pick game given the amount of contracts that will be up at the end of year and some of the comments he made at his pressers about how he likes to address the roster needs through free agency.
RobbRiddick Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 Wow, looking at last year's O-line gives me the runs
GunnerBill Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 They have definitely strengthened on the oline - which is a major win. I also think the offensive skill positions look stronger for 2019. There was a lot of debate in the offseason last year as to the relative strength of the skill positions. There were those of us saying that if you judge Benjamin and Clay by recent production and not reputation then it was a very weak group indeed. Predictably the usual suspects came up with a whole host of excuses for both and why they were suddenly going to return to being productive NFL players for the Bills in 2018. Of course that didn't happen and the skill positions absolutely stunk. Cole Beasley and John Brown, while far from superstars are moderate upgrades on Benjamin and Kerley and/or Deionte Thompson and Kroft while a bottom end #1TE is an upgrade on Charles "no knees" Clay. Then you add in Foster and McKenzie (I still think this guy makes the squad) with a year of development and the likes Of Dawson Know and Devin Singletary over Logan Thomas and Chris Ivory I think it looks more promising. This isn't a group likely to result in the Bills having a top 10 offense but I do think it is realistic to expect a bump of 10-15 spots from our 31s overall ranking in total offense in 2018. 3
DCbillsfan Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 Nice post! I see quite a few battles for the final few roster spots. The Bills have Mo Alexander as a LB does he beat out Deon Lacy/Corey Thompson? (I'm already guessing Joseph makes the roster at LB4) Does Carter beat out Bojorquez at P? Does Siran Neal survive or can Saquan Johnson beat him out at S? Not to mention who makes the starting 5 on OL and who wins out at CB2. 2
White Linen Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 2 hours ago, RobbRiddick said: Wow, looking at last year's O-line gives me the runs .... until I look at the WR group.
CaptnCoke11 Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 I have a feeling all of our picks will make the 53 except maybe D. Johnson. He the rawest prospect by far. He could benefit a year on PS. Running back wise i don’t see anyway Murphy makes the roster now.
billsfan_34 Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 7 hours ago, IgotBILLStopay said: Clearly without the deadcap overhang, aggressive FA signing and stellar draft, we are loads better. Here was our opening roster in 2018 (only had 52 players - then we added one other - I forgot who) QB (2): Nate Peterman, Josh Allen RB (5): LeSean McCoy, Chris Ivory, Marcus Murphy, Taiwan Jones, Patrick DiMarco WR (6): Kelvin Benjamin, Zay Jones, Andre Holmes, Jeremy Kerley, Ray-Ray McCloud, Robert Foster TE (4): Charles Clay, Jason Croom, Logan Thomas, Khari Lee OL (9): Dion Dawkins, Jordan Mills, Marshall Newhouse, Conor McDermott, John Miller, Vladimir Ducasse, Wyatt Teller, Russell Bodine, Ryan Groy DE (4): Jerry Hughes, Trent Murphy, Shaq Lawson, Eddie Yarbrough DT (4): Kyle Williams, Star Lotulelei, Harrison Phillips, Adolphus Washington LB (6): Lorenzo Alexander, Tremaine Edmunds, Matt Milano, Julian Stanford, Ramon Humber, Deon Lacey CB (5): Tre’Davious White, Vontae Davis, Phillip Gaines, Taron Johnson, Lafayette Pitts S (4): Micah Hyde, Jordan Poyer, Rafael Bush, Siran Neal ST (3): Stephen Hauschka, Colton Schmidt, Reid Ferguson Here is A very early 53 for 2019 (there will be 3-4 changes to this based on preferences, TC / injuries etc. - but about 49 of 53 should likely go through) - new ones for this season are bolded QB (3): Allen, Barkley, Jackson or Anderson RB (5? McCoy, Gore, Yeldon, Singletary, Murphy WR (7): Brown, Foster, Jones, Beasley, D. Williams, McKenzie, Roberts TE (3): Kroft, Knox, Croom OL (9): Morse, Ford, Dawkins, Nsekhe, Long, Spain, Teller, Feliciano, Waddle DE (4): Murphy, Lawson, Hughes, Yarbrough or D. Johnson DL (4): Phillips, Phillips, Oliver, Lotuleilei LB (6): Edmunds, Milano, Stanford, Joseph, Lorax, Lacey CB (5): T. White, K. Johnson, T. Johnson, L. Wallace, EJ Gaines S (4): Hyde, Poyer, Neal, Bush ST (3): Bojorquez (P), Haushka (K), Ferguson (LS) OL, RB and WR revamped. Am ready to go to war with that Offense roster unless a Julio Jones or someone like that emerges as a trade option. Defense (except Oliver and K. Johnson) remarkably similar to last year - so continuity will help us. The one area where we still need an upgrade is DE (am not fully sold on Lawson / Murphy / Yarbrough though Hughes remains a stud) hopefully 30 mill in cap room will go towards upgrading here. Possibilities: 1. A trade (Clowney?) Texans are shopping Clowney, but we should be interested only if he will agree to about 40-45 mill guaranteed (not Clark 63.5 m type money). 2. Post-draft potential cuts / trades to keep an eye on are Calais Campbell (Drafting Josh Allen makes parting with Campbell easier since cutting him saves the Jags 9.5 mill cap space - their cap situation is not fantastic and more likely, they can trade him - that will also save them 9.5 million and give them some compensation). Solomon Thomas (Drafting Bosa makes Thomas expendable). 3. Signing Ziggy Ansah Nice snapshot from last year to this year- thanks. Our roster is much improved except for ST particularly punter. What was that rookie punters name that broke his leg last pre season? He was booming the rock! Hopefully he is in the mix this year.
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