Bills exercise 5th year options on QB Josh Allen & LB Tremaine Edmunds

[JMF2006]

Edmunds the undeserved whipping boy of the Bills fan base.

 

The kid played hurt last year when he could have just bailed on the team and took time off.

 

That tells me all I need to know.  

 

 

[colin]

Just now, JMF2006 said:

Edmunds the undeserved whipping boy of the Bills fan base.

 

The kid played hurt last year when he could have just bailed on the team and took time off.

 

That tells me all I need to know.  

 

 

 

dude, i take a dump on edmunds fairly often, but this is very true.  what kinda changed my mind a bit (from like maybe to let's give it a shot anyhow) was his interviews at the end of the season.  he was really critical of himself.  not eeor style down in the dumps, but reflective and just not satisfied.  given his age and obvious talent, and his absolute no excuse for himself (a season when the team went to the afc chip game and he was hurt too boot) mentality makes me think he will leave no stone unturned in trying to be the best he can

 

[Royale with Cheese]

11 hours ago, Buffalo716 said:

You want a fortune cookie?! 😏

 

If you mean an edible, then yes.

[YoloinOhio]

 

 

[Thurman#1]

3 hours ago, 97bills said:

Kelce says hello and edmunds is average at best. They picked up his fifth year hoping he blows up next year. 

 

 

Kelce can say hello, but it wasn't like they just put Edmunds on him. That was a failure of the whole defense.

 

And the idea that a two-time Pro Bowler given a $12M option is average is dumb. So is the idea that Beane gives an average guy $12M hoping maybe he'll get better. 

[Thurman#1]

3 hours ago, colin said:

i think with the guys to come off the books and the new replacements we just drafted who will be dirt cheap, we have enough cap to just pay edmunds his option next year.  to not pay it would be to create a hole, not smart when you think you are in a prime window for a chip.

 

given how flippin young dude is, i really think the bills are making him earn his second contract through all 5 years.  if he shows just insane consistent play this season then yah, he gets an early extension, but if his next two years are like his last two years (some good, some regression, some pretty bad) then i bet he walks after year 5.

 

does anyone have stats on how often a 1st pick is extended to year 5, but then not resigned by his drafting team?  i think we did that w gilmore, but i think it's not that common.

 

 

Permit me to disagree when you say that we have enough cap to just pay Edmunds next year. 

 

Have you checked our 2022 available cap since they decided to give Edmunds and Josh their 5th year options? We have $1,147,046 available for 2022 according to Spotrac, expecting a salary cap of $192.5M. That's not a misprint or a mistake. Paying Allen and Edmunds puts them $1.1M above the cap for 2022.

 

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/cap/2022/

 

And that is with only 20 guys under contract for much more than vet min (I put the cutoff at $1M). And not yet having signed our drafted rookies.

 

This money situation is going to make it tough on them next year. Yet they paid Edmunds. Because they really really like him and think he's worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, and last year 17 of 32 exercised the options, and the year before it was also 17. It's not real difficult to google it if you want to go back further. "How many NFL first rounders had 5th year option picked up 2017?" was how I googled it. Took about 10 seconds to find an article.

 

Edited May 4, 2021 by Thurman#1

[HeHateMe]

5 hours ago, Rochesterfan said:

 

Nice Post.

 

I believe the biggest issue people have with Edmunds and Oliver’s play is related to the style of defense.  
 

The Bills play a very passive more traditional Tampa Cover 2 with a MLB they use in a specific deep cover roll.  Therefore - Edmunds first and primary responsibility is to get deep enough to prevent easy throws to the deep middle.  He then plays from back to front to move forward and make tackles on shorter middle routes and then running plays.  This design makes it fairly easy to attack short to mid range and also allows DL men to get off double teams and get a hold of him because he is not attacking run first.  Traditional old school LBs - attack run first in responsibility and therefore are in completely different positions relative to the LOS and the DL.

 

The Bills also seem to give their DL more responsibility- rather than just attack.  Jordan Phillips was a guy that played out of scheme and attacked and it got him sacks (great), but left holes that got exploited by teams (bad) to the tune that they were not aggressive in trying to re-sign him.  I think Oliver is doing more what they want, but it is a more passive role and ends up stifling his greatest attribute of quickness.

 

I would love to see how this team would change given a change in philosophy to more attacking and more pressure, but to be fair - their passive style did lead to the #2 and #3 defenses and they were for those 2 years a top passing defense and were tops against TEs.  Last year was more of an outlier without Star and with Harrison recovering and then both Milano and Edmunds getting injured in game 1.  They had to really adjust the team and I don’t think they found a rhythm until the second half - where they became a top defense again.

 

The biggest issue with being a passive defense is that good to great QBs and OCs know how to attack you and it takes a near perfect game to be successful.  A super aggressive defense can sometimes overwhelm a spot and be disruptive for large stretches - see Buffalo versus NE during the Rex years - but a good to great QB can also adjust to that.  
 

We need that change and they got that the 2 prior years - where suddenly they would slide into an amoeba front and bring pressure, whil still dropping 7-8 into coverage.  They had less practice time, different players (no Zo that was great at that), and injuries at the second level.  I think these caused them to be more passive and make a guy like Edmunds even less likely to make those impact plays (TFLs, sacks, etc.).

 

Our passiveness on defense really shows vs good teams with balanced offenses.  It just doesn't work well against them.  I hope we try to dictate more on D this year or we have a hard cap that will get exposed (has been) vs the upper tier teams. 

[97bills]

1 hour ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Kelce can say hello, but it wasn't like they just put Edmunds on him. That was a failure of the whole defense.

 

And the idea that a two-time Pro Bowler given a $12M option is average is dumb. So is the idea that Beane gives an average guy $12M hoping maybe he'll get better. 

Well that’s what is happening and if you put stock in the pro bowl that’s dump the pro bowl is a joke. And I’ve never miss a bills game in 30 years so I’ve watched Edmunds since he came into the league. His instincts are terrible he waits for the play to come to him his not a attacker. Can he be that guy maybe but I just don’t see it right now. And as far as the money goes look no closer to our D line we’ve paid plenty of average guys good money. There just hoping he does turn the corner because he does have great potential and they draft him so hi. And I didn’t say he sucked just not great and we will see this year where the cards fall on him. 

[Shaw66]

11 hours ago, Chandler#81 said:

Bro, just let it go.. I called the white coats -they’re on the way with a big net! He fancies himself Lord of Lords, King of Kings.. just do what we all do - flip him off and walk away..

Sometimes he says some really insightful things, lately particularly, so as between engaging him and ignoring him, I thought I'd try engaging.  

[Shaw66]

6 hours ago, Rochesterfan said:

 

Nice Post.

 

I believe the biggest issue people have with Edmunds and Oliver’s play is related to the style of defense.  
 

The Bills play a very passive more traditional Tampa Cover 2 with a MLB they use in a specific deep cover roll.  Therefore - Edmunds first and primary responsibility is to get deep enough to prevent easy throws to the deep middle.  He then plays from back to front to move forward and make tackles on shorter middle routes and then running plays.  This design makes it fairly easy to attack short to mid range and also allows DL men to get off double teams and get a hold of him because he is not attacking run first.  Traditional old school LBs - attack run first in responsibility and therefore are in completely different positions relative to the LOS and the DL.

 

The Bills also seem to give their DL more responsibility- rather than just attack.  Jordan Phillips was a guy that played out of scheme and attacked and it got him sacks (great), but left holes that got exploited by teams (bad) to the tune that they were not aggressive in trying to re-sign him.  I think Oliver is doing more what they want, but it is a more passive role and ends up stifling his greatest attribute of quickness.

 

I would love to see how this team would change given a change in philosophy to more attacking and more pressure, but to be fair - their passive style did lead to the #2 and #3 defenses and they were for those 2 years a top passing defense and were tops against TEs.  Last year was more of an outlier without Star and with Harrison recovering and then both Milano and Edmunds getting injured in game 1.  They had to really adjust the team and I don’t think they found a rhythm until the second half - where they became a top defense again.

 

The biggest issue with being a passive defense is that good to great QBs and OCs know how to attack you and it takes a near perfect game to be successful.  A super aggressive defense can sometimes overwhelm a spot and be disruptive for large stretches - see Buffalo versus NE during the Rex years - but a good to great QB can also adjust to that.  
 

We need that change and they got that the 2 prior years - where suddenly they would slide into an amoeba front and bring pressure, whil still dropping 7-8 into coverage.  They had less practice time, different players (no Zo that was great at that), and injuries at the second level.  I think these caused them to be more passive and make a guy like Edmunds even less likely to make those impact plays (TFLs, sacks, etc.).

 

I just jumped back into this thread, and seeing your post reminded me of something I thought about a few months ago and again this week.  It's not my idea - I heard someone else say it.  I don't criticize McDermott often, but this point about the style of defense continues to eat at me.  

 

You describe the defensive style well, and why Edmunds is a good fit for it.  The style absolutely demands that you have very good pass rush out of your front four, something McDermott admits.  Otherwise, you get picked apart by the good QBs.   The Bills haven't had that pass rush - in, fact, it's hard to have consistently good pass rush from four guys, season after season.  

 

But even if you assume the Bills will get there, and this draft should help, there's a more fundamental problem that McDermott should see, and that is one of his other favorite subjects - complementary football.  The team works best when what the offense does meshes well with what the defense does.  

 

Well, whether McDermott wants to admit it or not, I think his defensive style doesn't mesh with the offense.   With Josh Allen, you're going to have a big-play, high-scoring offense.   No point in making Josh a game manager - he's a threat to score from any place on the field.   Offensively, the Bills should have one primary objective - be explosive.   More speed, more talent, better protection, because if you have that, Josh will score the football.  

 

What does that tell you about the defense?   The defense's job is to get the ball to Josh as soon as possible, because good things happen when Josh has the ball.   That means the bend-don't-break containment style defense that McDermott runs is the wrong style.  The right style is to be a brutal, attacking defense, high-risk, high-reward, because that style defense gets the ball back to Josh the fastest.   Yes, sometimes it gives up easy scores, but that still gets the ball back to Josh.  But it also gets takeaways, which are great for the offense, and sacks, which lead to punts, which also are great for Josh.   

 

McDermott's defense tends to slow the game down, and I don't think that's good for the Bills.  

 

And that's exactly the problem with Edmunds.  If you're playing high-risk, high-reward defense, you need an attacking middle linebacker, someone who's exploding into gaps, who's a productive blitzer, a guy making a lot of tackles.  You don't need a guy who's dropping deep, keeping everything in front of him and then closing once the play has largely unfolded.  And I guess that's the point I've been making - the Bills like Edmunds because he's the right guy for the defense as McDermott imagines it.   The real question is whether the defense that McDermott imagines is the right defense for the Bills. 

[NewEra]

9 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Thoughtful post, obviously coming from a good place. Thank you for the kind words.

 

I guess that there's so much hate of Edmunds from the same group of people that I end up balling it all together and treating it as one source, one phenomenon. I shouldn't do that so much. A lot of the  is knee-jerk scapegoating. Most of it, IMO. But that doesn't mean there aren't some thoughtful people who simply disagree.

 

If I've got a problem in my behavior, it's that I tend towards being cranky and brusque in my writing. Oughta be more diplomatic and amiable. I work on it, but I generally disappoint myself. I often write cranky posts and then go back fifteen minutes later to soften things. A lot of time the person has already seen it and it's too late. If I offended you, I'm genuinely sorry.

 

I still disagree with a lot of what you said, though. 

 

What do I think about Star and why they gave him the money? It's clear to me that they gave him the money because he was worth it, that he's done a very good job here, and that he was greatly missed last year, particularly early as they struggled to take guys they'd expected to put in roles better suited to their skill sets and instead spent a long time trying to figure out how to replace what they'd lost with Star. Having nobody like him, they had a very hard time doing it, but in so doing they also played guys out of position, changed roles and generally changed how their D that had been extremely successful the year before worked. Yeah they then with money problems asked for $1.75M back in the third year of his $50M contract, also giving him an extra year's guarantee and a year beyond that guaranteed against injury. Both sides got something from that.

 

And yeah, they gave Addison the money. It's a lot harder to predict how a guy will fit and play in your D when he hasn't been in  your locker room for years as Tremaine has. 

 

As for Edmunds and the money, McDermott is a top-flight defensive mind. I honestly don't know how anyone can argue that. And he supports and works to keep Edmunds here. He does that because the guy does what McDermott sees as his job. Not perfectly. But very well. Plenty here don't like his style, they obviously want a different style of guy. Many want a pounder, the old-fashioned type of MLB. He'll never be that.

 

I do watch Edmunds play and I did think he was a legit pro bowl caliber player ... after he recovered from his injury. So did the Pro Bowl voters. We can't say for sure about Pro Bowl status, but it's a decent bet that so did Beane and McDermott if they paid him $12M for an off-ball LB. But they're not the only ones. The fact is, that's the consensus. Most people think so. 

 

I didn't keep track of off-ball LB play throughout the AFC. Can't speak directly to that. But I do keep track of play generally, and there are a bunch of good LBs there in the AFC. How well they played last year specifically I don't know. But after the first six weeks or so, as Edmunds' arm got better and McDermott schemed around the loss of Star and found band-aids and stopgaps that stopped most of the bleeding, Edmunds played very well. Again, I can't compare to other ILBs around the AFC this particular year, but very well.

 

I haven't kept track of your status on Tremaine. You don't come across here as a hater, though obviously I thought you did a bit in the last one. You do come across as a person who is drastically underestimating Edmunds. As far as the hater thing, there are a bunch of them out there. From this post, you do not appear to be one of them. People here come across like villagers with pitchforks on Edmunds, Star and to a lesser degree, Ed Oliver. And I don't understand why.

 

When they had Star in 2019, had a 2nd year Edmunds and a rookie Oliver, they were an elite defense, and we still heard constant criticism from this certain group despite overwhelming, well-deserved praise of the D from around the league. Last year they started with injuries to Oliver and Edmunds and with the optout of Star. The D started very slow but as Oliver and Edmunds got healthy and McDermott found ways to scheme a 1-tech rather than having Star eat space, they became a top ten D. 

 

I really don't get it. This is a good group.

 

 

👍🏻 For the well thought out reply.  I feel the same about my posting and apologize to those I may have offended.  When we’re passionate about our team, our emotions can get the best of us. ❤️
 

Here’s where we disagree imo:  it revolves around the style of play McD is looking for from his LBs.  McD had an all time great LB in Luke Kuechly in Carolina.  When Edmunds was drafted and slotted into Kuechlys role, I expected McD to employ Edmunds in the same way. Why wouldn’t he?  That’s the defense he’s been coaching since Philly.  Seek and destroy, TFL, ultra instinctive, reading the his gaps and the QB, pass deflections, reading his keys properly, not biting on PA and QB eyes prematurely.  We saw some of that in 2019 then it all disappeared (imo) last season.  I never saw him in the backfield making plays (he had 4 TFL last year).  I rarely ever saw him break up passes (but he did have 4).  I rarely saw him hit the right gap vs the run.  I saw very little instinctual plays.  I just didn’t see “what McD wants out of him”.  He’s not Luke Kuechly......not many are and it may be unfair to compare him to a HoF LB.....but it’s not really.  Because that is was McD ideally wants his LBs to do. What I’d like to see more of is consistency.  I find him to be wildly inconsistent.

 

Edmunds did a much better job of every in 2019.  Injuries played a part in it.  No doubt.  The lack of a 1T played into it.  No doubt. That played into why I knew they would either extend him or pick up his 5th year option.  His youth and physical god given traits are too much to give up on at this stage in his development.  For me, the light still hasn’t turned on as far as playing MLB.  He still has a long way to go.  If he ever reaches his ceiling, he’ll be worth a lot more that 12.7M.  I just don’t think the impact he had on our D last year was worthy.  Hopefully he can put 2020 behind him and he can get to where we need him to be.
 

As I’ve pointed out in other threads- Edmunds and out D improved after the AZ game and the bye. Who did we play after AZ?  Herbert (we played possibly our best defensive game of the year coming off our bye);  Big Ben with no mobility and no run game;  Mullen’s, sucks;  Lock, sucks;  cam, sucks;  Tua, sucks.  The last 4 games of the year, our offense steamrolled the opposition and our opponents were forced to throw the entire 2nd half.  Our defense was helped immensely by out dominant offense forcing the opposition into being one dimensional.  Baltimore is as one dimensional as they come and the winds were howling, not to mention Lamar got injured.  The Colts O did what they wanted for the most part and moved the ball all game (picking on Edmunds all game).   The turn around of Edmunds coincided with playing bad offenses and our offenses success forcing the opponents to throw and play a one dimensional game.  

Regarding Star being “worth it”.  I disagree that he’s worth 10M AV.  That is the problem with star.  10M.  Getting paid 10M a year while the other DTs not playing on rookie deals are getting less and are much more disruptive.  How many other 1T are getting 10M a year? Dalvin Tomlinson got 2 years 21M.  Star is nowhere near as good as Tomlinson imo.  We missed him last year. Of course we missed him, we didn’t have any true 1Ts.  Literally not one. Phillips and Butler are not true 1Ts imo.  They played better after the bye as well.  No big shock as the opponents were forced to throw for over half the game in most cases.  
 

Addison stunk last season and his play was declining in Carolina the previous 2 seasons as @GunnerBill has pointed out in several other thread.  He was overpaid and his play last season was even worse than his contract imo. I hope that we cut him.  
 

I can simply say that we agree to disagree. 👊🏻  

 

 

[GoBills808]

7 hours ago, Rochesterfan said:

 

Nice Post.

 

I believe the biggest issue people have with Edmunds and Oliver’s play is related to the style of defense.  
 

The Bills play a very passive more traditional Tampa Cover 2 with a MLB they use in a specific deep cover roll.  Therefore - Edmunds first and primary responsibility is to get deep enough to prevent easy throws to the deep middle.  He then plays from back to front to move forward and make tackles on shorter middle routes and then running plays.  This design makes it fairly easy to attack short to mid range and also allows DL men to get off double teams and get a hold of him because he is not attacking run first.  Traditional old school LBs - attack run first in responsibility and therefore are in completely different positions relative to the LOS and the DL.

 

The Bills also seem to give their DL more responsibility- rather than just attack.  Jordan Phillips was a guy that played out of scheme and attacked and it got him sacks (great), but left holes that got exploited by teams (bad) to the tune that they were not aggressive in trying to re-sign him.  I think Oliver is doing more what they want, but it is a more passive role and ends up stifling his greatest attribute of quickness.

 

I would love to see how this team would change given a change in philosophy to more attacking and more pressure, but to be fair - their passive style did lead to the #2 and #3 defenses and they were for those 2 years a top passing defense and were tops against TEs.  Last year was more of an outlier without Star and with Harrison recovering and then both Milano and Edmunds getting injured in game 1.  They had to really adjust the team and I don’t think they found a rhythm until the second half - where they became a top defense again.

 

The biggest issue with being a passive defense is that good to great QBs and OCs know how to attack you and it takes a near perfect game to be successful.  A super aggressive defense can sometimes overwhelm a spot and be disruptive for large stretches - see Buffalo versus NE during the Rex years - but a good to great QB can also adjust to that.  
 

We need that change and they got that the 2 prior years - where suddenly they would slide into an amoeba front and bring pressure, whil still dropping 7-8 into coverage.  They had less practice time, different players (no Zo that was great at that), and injuries at the second level.  I think these caused them to be more passive and make a guy like Edmunds even less likely to make those impact plays (TFLs, sacks, etc.).

 

I don’t think the Bills play much Tampa2 tbh. Edmunds is rarely bailing downfield as much as he is playing tackle gaps and carrying the Y or slot...in base our defense looks more like Cover4to me especially w the amount of exchange between Poyer and the 5th DB

 

 

[colin]

2 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Permit me to disagree when you say that we have enough cap to just pay Edmunds next year. 

 

Have you checked our 2022 available cap since they decided to give Edmunds and Josh their 5th year options? We have $1,147,046 available for 2022 according to Spotrac, expecting a salary cap of $192.5M. That's not a misprint or a mistake. Paying Allen and Edmunds puts them $1.1M above the cap for 2022.

 

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/cap/2022/

 

And that is with only 20 guys under contract for much more than vet min (I put the cutoff at $1M). And not yet having signed our drafted rookies.

 

This money situation is going to make it tough on them next year. Yet they paid Edmunds. Because they really really like him and think he's worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, and last year 17 of 32 exercised the options, and the year before it was also 17. It's not real difficult to google it if you want to go back further. "How many NFL first rounders had 5th year option picked up 2017?" was how I googled it. Took about 10 seconds to find an article.

 

 

 

i wasn't aware of that on the cap, although i suspect the inside expectations are much higher (see cowboys paying dak).

 

also, i was talking about teams who pay the 5th year option but let the guy walk after.  i was wondering how common that was.

[SCBills]

Did I just hear correctly?... Baker's 5th year option is $18 mil and Josh's is $23 mil because Josh made a Pro-Bowl?

 

Yeesh.... I mean, good problem to have, but I had no clue about that kicker. 

[GunnerBill]

14 minutes ago, GoBills808 said:

I don’t think the Bills play much Tampa2 tbh. Edmunds is rarely bailing downfield as much as he is playing tackle gaps and carrying the Y or slot...in base our defense looks more like Cover4to me especially w the amount of exchange between Poyer and the 5th DB

 

 

There was a really good tweet last year that broke down in percentages how much of each coverage the Bills used in 2019 from one of the analytical sites and frustratingly I now can't find it. I haven't seen a similar breakdown for 2020 but would have been interesting to compare the two. They definitely ran a lot of cover 4 palms in 2019, and did so to really good effect their numbers in that coverage were excellent. 

[Warcodered]

 

[Rochesterfan]

1 hour ago, Shaw66 said:

I just jumped back into this thread, and seeing your post reminded me of something I thought about a few months ago and again this week.  It's not my idea - I heard someone else say it.  I don't criticize McDermott often, but this point about the style of defense continues to eat at me.  

 

You describe the defensive style well, and why Edmunds is a good fit for it.  The style absolutely demands that you have very good pass rush out of your front four, something McDermott admits.  Otherwise, you get picked apart by the good QBs.   The Bills haven't had that pass rush - in, fact, it's hard to have consistently good pass rush from four guys, season after season.  

 

But even if you assume the Bills will get there, and this draft should help, there's a more fundamental problem that McDermott should see, and that is one of his other favorite subjects - complementary football.  The team works best when what the offense does meshes well with what the defense does.  

 

Well, whether McDermott wants to admit it or not, I think his defensive style doesn't mesh with the offense.   With Josh Allen, you're going to have a big-play, high-scoring offense.   No point in making Josh a game manager - he's a threat to score from any place on the field.   Offensively, the Bills should have one primary objective - be explosive.   More speed, more talent, better protection, because if you have that, Josh will score the football.  

 

What does that tell you about the defense?   The defense's job is to get the ball to Josh as soon as possible, because good things happen when Josh has the ball.   That means the bend-don't-break containment style defense that McDermott runs is the wrong style.  The right style is to be a brutal, attacking defense, high-risk, high-reward, because that style defense gets the ball back to Josh the fastest.   Yes, sometimes it gives up easy scores, but that still gets the ball back to Josh.  But it also gets takeaways, which are great for the offense, and sacks, which lead to punts, which also are great for Josh.   

 

McDermott's defense tends to slow the game down, and I don't think that's good for the Bills.  

 

And that's exactly the problem with Edmunds.  If you're playing high-risk, high-reward defense, you need an attacking middle linebacker, someone who's exploding into gaps, who's a productive blitzer, a guy making a lot of tackles.  You don't need a guy who's dropping deep, keeping everything in front of him and then closing once the play has largely unfolded.  And I guess that's the point I've been making - the Bills like Edmunds because he's the right guy for the defense as McDermott imagines it.   The real question is whether the defense that McDermott imagines is the right defense for the Bills. 

 

I totally agree - the issue becomes - will they change it up and risk the big play.  I am all for it now that we have the offense - changing up the defense and getting after people.

 

What we know is the offense (and Josh) became super explosive last year and it was even more than expected - they exceeded the wildest dreams of most Bills fans (and my guess is FO and Coaching staff alike).  The hard part is they did not get quality practice time and free time together to modify the defense completely- especially as they were still trying to figure out personnel.

 

My hope is with the acquisition and drafting of these bigger DEs that can play inside - we shift the focus to gap attacking DLine - and essentially 2 LB playing more outside to attack edges and a physical safety - maybe Poyer in the middle with a split safety look.  Then attack and if you get beat once in a while - so what - let Josh be the hammer and you go right back out and get it.

 

I don’t think Edmunds can be a strict MLB in that defense, but if they play a 4-2-5 (3 Safety) look with essentially 2 hybrid LBs playing both outside and short zone coverage - I think they can be more aggressive.  It also requires the off corner to be a bit more physical and able to stay with a WR. We will see if Dane Jackson can get some time in that type of roll or is there a cheap vet they can bring in.

[Rochesterfan]

1 hour ago, GoBills808 said:

I don’t think the Bills play much Tampa2 tbh. Edmunds is rarely bailing downfield as much as he is playing tackle gaps and carrying the Y or slot...in base our defense looks more like Cover4to me especially w the amount of exchange between Poyer and the 5th DB

 

 

 

They certainly play a lot of Cover 4 also, but that leaves the same issue - the MLB has significant coverage responsibility and it is much less aggressive toward attacking the LOS.  The Bills especially are very focused on keeping pass plays in front of them and for years have given little thought to stopping the run as a primary goal (they give it lip service, but over the years - teams that want to run over and over can).

[Bill from NYC]

22 hours ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

I knew Gilmore was underrated.   Not franchise tagging him was a stupid decision.   Even if he didn't want to stay, anyone who knew how good he was knew he would have netted a high draft pick.   Maybe a #1.

 

Maybe they could have tagged him with a "promise" not to do it again. 😃

 

I wonder how many people will remember what I refer to above. 

[BADOLBILZ]

11 minutes ago, Bill from NYC said:

Maybe they could have tagged him with a "promise" not to do it again. 😃

 

I wonder how many people will remember what I refer to above. 

 

 

No, they don't.

 

Only other teams that don't maximize the value of their controllable assets are mocked.

 

When Marv Levy made that "arrangement" with Nate Clements the apologists were more concerned about the goodwill that Levy was creating with the mythical union of free agents of the future.    We've occasionally seen this ridiculous sentiment re-emerge.   Stupidly giving away value just makes you look weak.

 

Marv made the Bills organization look spineless and that snowballed into more players asking to be freed and then the shark Eugene Parker smelling blood and turning into the official player agent of the Buffalo Bills.