2022 NFL Draft - Day 2 Debrief

[Cash]

8 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Honest question:  What has Stevenson done that you feel showed a lot of promise?

 

Hodgins.  There seems to be a lot of Hodgins love on the board.  In general, we as fans seem to love our 6th and 7th rounders who we've barely seen on the field (Sweeney). 

The bottom lines are:

1)  Hodgins is going into his 3rd season, and has seen four (4) snaps in one game.  That's not promising.

2) Fundamentally, Hodgins would be no higher than the #5 WR behind Diggs, Davis, Crowder, and McKenzie. 

The #5 WR MUST play teams.  Has Hodgins ever played teams?  In College?  In Preseason? 

 

That's why Kumerow is on the roster - not because he's a great or even a good WR, but because he can really play teams.

 

Stevenson: Legit NFL acceleration, top speed, and ability to cut at speed. Everything else, I don’t have enough info to evaluate. The Bills’ WR coach and OC and HC hopefully do, though. How did he do last year in practice at picking up route running? Learning the playbook? Accepting feedback from coaches when he makes a mistake, and working on improving? When they do film study, does he pay attention? Further, does he actually get what they’re showing him, or do his eyes kind of glaze over?  Etc, etc. That’s the kind of stuff that makes the difference between a guy who develops vs a guy who never improves beyond his rookie year. I have zero visibility to any of it, so it could be amazing, terrible, or anywhere in between. If it’s decent or better, I have confidence in this coaching staff to get real improvements out of him. If not, well those are the breaks. 
 

Hodgins: Everything above applies to him as well, with the difference that his positives are size and contested catch ability. I fully expect him to be cut this year, because I tend to think if he had something, he would’ve shown it by now, and at least earned some public praise from McD or Daboll. But since Hodgins is such an unknown, there’s still a reasonable chance that he’s just had bad injury luck, combo’d with better players above him on the depth chart and not being on ST. As an outsider, I put that chance at like 10%. But the Bills should have a much better read on it - they probably think it’s either 0.1% or >50% with the info they have. Hodgins is probably more of a known quantity for the Bills than Stevenson, because they have a much better idea about how Hodgins handles the off-season. 
 

Anyway, I’m not counting on anything from either of those guys. But as long as the Bills don’t acquire anyone new, I’ll hold out hope that the Bills think either (or both!) can succeed if given the opportunity. 

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

Just now, ScottLaw said:

Two. 5 on defense.

Exactly. They just don't value it.

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

1 hour ago, SCBills said:

Im not overlooking it.. I don’t know that the Chiefs will be even close to as dynamic as they’ve been with Hill.  He’s that special.  
 

What I’m saying is that we have posters saying we don’t need a WR, when we have two legitimate outside WR’s.  
 

The Chiefs have MVS, Hardman and Juju as their starters, then still went out and got Mahomes Skyy Moore.  
 

We have Diggs, Davis and Crowder… a better 3-wide than the Chiefs, but after them we have a gadget/slot in McKenzie and that’s really it. 

 

What I am saying is the Chiefs went into the draft with 6 total picks day 1 and 2. Bills had 3. If the Chiefs only had three picks like the Bills they may not have taken a WR. We don't know what the Bills would have done with double the picks on day 1 and 2.

[No_Matter_What]

2 hours ago, Cash said:

Good post and well-written, even though I don’t really agree. I’ll respond point by point:

 

1. You have a point, but it think you go too far. By this logic, Tom Brady in the 4th would’ve been a bad pick. That’s obviously nonsensical, so therefore there’s an issue with the logic. The fact is, it’s unknowable where Bernard would’ve gone if the Bills didn’t pick him. The Bills clearly disagreed with the consensus. If they were the ONLY team to disagree, then it was indeed a bad value pick. But if even one other team also disagreed, it might’ve been the only spot they could get Bernard. Now, they still need him to pan out for it to be a good pick. 
 

2. I mostly agree here, except that I think LB depth is about equally important. We had basically nothing behind our 2 starters prior to last night. 
 

3. I think you were just mad at this point, because “go draft another Milano in the 5th” is basically saying, “Hey, you won the lottery a couple years ago - why not just win it again?” I’m guessing they think the dropoff at LB was pretty steep after Bernard, but the dropoff is pretty shallow at other needed positions. Maybe they can get a G/C in the 5th who’s almost as good as Parham, but Bernard was the last LB in the draft that they thought could step in and start if Edmunds or Milano got hurt? Beane said that Bernard could play both spots and would bounce around. 
 

Go Bills!

I love how you said that my post was good and well-written and then proceeded to disagree mostly and eventually calling me mad  But don't take me wrong I feel sort of the same - I respect your post a lot but disagree to a certain point.

 

As for 1, I really do think that every time you deviate from the consensus too much you already lost. Yeah you might hit from time to time, but you miss more often than not and overall you lose. You just don't hit nearly enough to justify deviation (i.e. thinking you are smarter than others). Granted, I don't have data to back this up, but I think it is common sense and quick look at 1st round deviations in last 4 years says a lot (there was a chart posted here couple days ago).

 

Look at what Ravens just did. Up until now they chose 6 playes. ALL of them were taken lower (or much lower) than consensus. Now that is how you pick value. Hamilton at 14, Linderbaum at 25, Ojabo at 45, Travis Jones at 76, Faalele at 110, Armour-Davis at 119. I have no doubt that this is much better way to build the team. I would even go so far to say that even if you ALWAYS randomly choose the one of the 5 highest nonQB guys on the consensus board instead of making your own deviation pick, you build a better team. In Bills case these guys were (on my consolidated board) Winfrey, Chenall, Tindall, Parnham, Cross. I will surely watch them

 

Now one thing I might overestimate is the actual deviation. We picked him at 89, and he might have been around 120. That I can live with that. If he was 140 it just gets worse and worse.

 

As for 3, I am not mad. Just dissapointed. They apparently think in lines of what you wrote. But that still screams backup. I can hardly imagine a scenario in which it was impossible to find a G who could be starter by next year. Or OT who could become NFL G.

 

Anyway, hopefully they hit the pick and they keep on hitting today.

 

 

[HappyDays]

4 hours ago, D. L. Hot-Flamethrower said:

I'm still not sure  we can handle Cover 2 as well as we need to without Josh running

 

That's what James Cook was drafted for. Last year Allen was dumping the ball off to Singletary when defenses dropped back. Cook is much more dynamic in that role.

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

3 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

That's what James Cook was drafted for. Last year Allen was dumping the ball off to Singletary when defenses dropped back. Cook is much more dynamic in that role.

 

Good point. Those dump offs were a thing of beauty too last year once Daboll and Allen figured out how to use them.

[HappyDays]

3 hours ago, SCBills said:

We have Diggs, Davis and Crowder… a better 3-wide than the Chiefs, but after them we have a gadget/slot in McKenzie and that’s really it.

 

Diggs

Davis

Crowder

McKenzie

Knox

Howard

Cook

 

That's a really good group of pass catchers, three of which were just added this offseason. I'm all for adding another WR. But it's rare to have the luxury of three starting caliber outside WRs and that isn’t the only position catching passes.

[K D]

1 hour ago, ScottLaw said:

Crossing my fingers for more safety depth today!!! 

Bills have 2 backup safeties on the roster they like already. I don't think it's a need, especially this late in the draft

[K-9]

2 hours ago, ScottLaw said:

Crossing my fingers for more safety depth today!!! 

[philholbroo]

what a great draft so far, 2.5 seasons in.

[SoTier]

35 minutes ago, philholbroo said:

what a great draft so far, 2.5 seasons in.

 

Understatement ... Cook at the end of the 2nd, Bernard late in the 3rd, Shakir in the 5th, Benford in the 6th ... all outstanding starters.   Getting 4 starters of their quality from a single draft is amazing.

 

Elam has been a disappointment, but 7th rounder Spector is a useful player.  Without outside issues, 6th rounder Araiza likely is the Bills punter rather than KC's.   Of their 8 picks in 2022, only 1, Luke Tenuta, failed to make the Bills.  He's currently on the Cardinals PS.

[GunnerBill]

5 minutes ago, SoTier said:

 

Understatement ... Cook at the end of the 2nd, Bernard late in the 3rd, Shakir in the 5th, Benford in the 6th ... all outstanding starters.   Getting 4 starters of their quality from a single draft is amazing.

 

Elam has been a disappointment, but 7th rounder Spector is a useful player.  Without outside issues, 6th rounder Araiza likely is the Bills punter rather than KC's.   Of their 8 picks in 2022, only 1, Luke Tenuta, failed to make the Bills.  He's currently on the Cardinals PS.

 

And we basically swapped Tenuta for Ryan Van Demark who is our swing tackle. Both were cut at the end of camp their rookie years.... RVD came here initially to the PS and Tenuta signed for the Colts PS.