Bills to workout WRs Preston Williams, Marcell Ateman

[Simon Says]

I'm not real excited about 90th man signing but good luck to him.

[Don Otreply]

5 hours ago, BananaB said:

Exactly, that’s why I’m complaining. They ain’t brining in help, just bodies

So, seriously, tell us who you would have brought in with the cap situation the Bills are currently in without creating holes in the D or O, and not just make believe fantasy acquisitions, or is this “complaining” just because we haven’t given Hopkins everything he wants? Enlighten us…, 

[Big Turk]

Preston Williams had some good games against us.

[Bobby Hooks]

On 6/1/2023 at 2:02 PM, Shaw66 said:

Of course, whatever wins a Super Bowl is great.  If Justin Shorter catches two touchdowns in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, then Beane's a genius because he grabbed him when he did.  if a one-year rental doesn't win a Super Bowl, Beane's wasted an opportunity to build his team for the longer term.  

 

There are positives and negatives to most strategies.  The one-year rental worked for the Rams and Miller, and in the same season it didn't work for however many other contenders used it.  All I said is I'm not a fan; if Beane does it and it works, I'll love it. 

See, this is where you kind of lose me. 
 

Signing most guys to a one year deal doesn’t affect building the team for the longer term. Let’s use Poona and Harris as examples. 
 

Who could we have signed in place of either of those guys to build the team for the future? 
 

Any DTs that have Ford’s upside wasnt signing for what he signed for. In fact he turned down more to come here. 
 

Same for Harris, what biggish goal line running back should we have gotten that a.) would contribute as much as he can this coming year, and b.) we wouldn’t have to trade assets or pay up for? 

 

The way I see it, Beane is signing these one year guys so that we can stay viable for the future. They come in, perform, and they’re gone. 
 

That gives you one more year of high quality play while you evaluate what’s out there for the upcoming draft/free agency. 
 

I’d much rather him do it that way than sign a so-so guy that they’re not in love with on a longer term deal. I think that’s how you get yourself in trouble. 
 

 

 

[ChronicAndKnuckles]

On 6/1/2023 at 11:24 AM, Bobby Hooks said:

It’s stuff like this where I can’t understand people still criticizing Beane and the owners. 
 

They’re constantly working. They had a good draft, signed Poona, are in on the biggest player left (Hopkins), and still trying to beef up the depth/special teams. 

They could easily sit back and wait for the season and no one would bat an eye. But they’re still going. 

 

Beane does deserve some criticism though. He's made some serious errors for critical positions. I'm sure he would admit that as well. Guys like Epenesa, Oliver, Basham, Cody Ford, Roger Saffold, etc are living proof of that. You can't base your whole resume on the Josh Allen pick. This entire team lacks the physicality needed for winter football which should be one of Buffalo's strengths. Imagine having a defense like the Eagles or 49ers. Josh Allen with that cast is a recipe for a dynasty. Beane is a good GM, but some serious improvement needs to be made and his picks (especially on the defensive line) need to start panning out more.

[ArdmoreRyno]

On 6/1/2023 at 10:01 AM, C.Biscuit97 said:

Loved Ateman in college. He was a baller. 

Another Oklahoma State kiddo! He was one of those players (like Tyreek) I didn’t understand why Gundy didn’t use more of because he had flashes of being f’ing amazing. Of course, we had James Washington as WR1 who won the Biletnikoff, as the main target for Mason Rudolph. 
 

(Okla State alum & season ticket holder)

 

GO POKES! 

On 6/1/2023 at 4:34 PM, Gambit said:

 

 

 

We signed one former Oklahoma State WR and waived another former OSU Cowboy WR. 

Edited June 2, 2023 by ArdmoreRyno

[Shaw66]

1 hour ago, Bobby Hooks said:

See, this is where you kind of lose me. 
 

Signing most guys to a one year deal doesn’t affect building the team for the longer term. Let’s use Poona and Harris as examples. 
 

Who could we have signed in place of either of those guys to build the team for the future? 
 

Any DTs that have Ford’s upside wasnt signing for what he signed for. In fact he turned down more to come here. 
 

Same for Harris, what biggish goal line running back should we have gotten that a.) would contribute as much as he can this coming year, and b.) we wouldn’t have to trade assets or pay up for? 

 

The way I see it, Beane is signing these one year guys so that we can stay viable for the future. They come in, perform, and they’re gone. 
 

That gives you one more year of high quality play while you evaluate what’s out there for the upcoming draft/free agency. 
 

I’d much rather him do it that way than sign a so-so guy that they’re not in love with on a longer term deal. I think that’s how you get yourself in trouble. 
 

 

 

Well, all those things are correct, sort of, more or less.  But just as Babich said in his presser, the only way for players to grow is to get reps in games.  To play whole games, whole seasons.  So, every time you have a one-year rental, you're impairing the growth of a younger player.   There's a cost to that.   Moreover, the one-year rental creates a hole in the lineup for the next season, a hole that you haven't trained a young guy to fill, so the GM has to go back to free agency to plug the hole.  The process begets itself, which means you're looking at more frequent roster turnover, which is contrary to the long-term building philosophy McBeane want to follow. 

 

You may be right; maybe the best way to build and stay on top is through free agency.  McBeane don't agree.  

[Chaos]

1 hour ago, Shaw66 said:

The process begets itself, which means you're looking at more frequent roster turnover, which is contrary to the long-term building philosophy McBeane want to follow. 

The salary cap (its real folks), rookie contract rules, the benefits of free agency to the player and draft position in inverse order of finish position means every team in the NFL, has to turn over the vast majority of its roster every several years.  There is no alternative.  There is no strategic of philosophical way to avoid it. 

[Shaw66]

50 minutes ago, Chaos said:

The salary cap (its real folks), rookie contract rules, the benefits of free agency to the player and draft position in inverse order of finish position means every team in the NFL, has to turn over the vast majority of its roster every several years.  There is no alternative.  There is no strategic of philosophical way to avoid it. 

Yes, but the less turnover, the better, or so the strategy would suggest.   I don't have the data, but it would make sense that teams that are chasing short-term free-agent talent have more turnover.

 

I'm not saying either strategy is correct.  I'm saying that, as with everything, choices have consequences, some good, some bad.  

[Chaos]

11 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

Yes, but the less turnover, the better, or so the strategy would suggest.   I don't have the data, but it would make sense that teams that are chasing short-term free-agent talent have more turnover.

 

I'm not saying either strategy is correct.  I'm saying that, as with everything, choices have consequences, some good, some bad.  

A review of the Patriots run of multiple championships shows that only a small number of the same core players were on the roster between championships, and of course between the first and last only one player remained on the roster.  I am not aware of any data that demonstrates the championship teams have less turnover than other teams. 

[Coldfronts]

sounds like they are moving on from D Hop and signing low cost but with potential and volume at wr

[Shaw66]

50 minutes ago, Chaos said:

A review of the Patriots run of multiple championships shows that only a small number of the same core players were on the roster between championships, and of course between the first and last only one player remained on the roster.  I am not aware of any data that demonstrates the championship teams have less turnover than other teams. 

Yeah, I've never seen any data that's been accumulated on the subject.  What I said was that that kind of continuity was the strategy.  Whether the strategy actually results in any way that would show up as a statistical difference, I don't know.  

 

What I'm saying is based in part on what I hear Babich say, and what I've heard McBeane say in the past.  Beane has said often that they draft to build the team for the long term and they use free agency to fill holes.   They say their objective is to draft good players and keep them.  Babich was clear that the need for players to get real-time, in-game reps is essential for their growth and development.   When you put those thoughts together, you can see how it fits together, even if you, personally, don't think it's a good idea.   The objective is to draft White and Milano and others, and keep them for a long time.   The cap and other factors make it impossible to do that across the roster, but the objective is to have as many of those guys as possible.  When you miss by a little, you draft an Edmunds and give him every opportunity to grow into what you want.  The problem when a guy doesn't work out, like Edmunds, is that although he's played well enough to stay in the lineup, he's taken reps away from the next guy who's going to play that position.  The bigger problem is when you man a position with one-year rental, like Saffold, because then he hasn't satisfied your need at the positions AND other, younger players who are part of the future didn't get the reps.   That's why, I think, McBeane don't like the one-year rental approach.

 

Think about it.   Who's the real talent the Bills have acquired?   Diggs, Morse, Miller.   None of them were one-year, hole-plugging, Super-Bowl-or-bust acquisitions.   They were guys brought in to fill important, longer-term needs.  They are exceptions to the build-through-the-draft philosophy, but they were not one-year rentals.  

 

I get that you and others like the rental approach, and a lot of people like that approach because they are believers in the Super-Bowl window; they believe that when you have an Allen, you should mortgage the future to surround the guy with talent and win while you can.   I understand that approach, but I don't spend a lot of time thinking about how the Bills might get Hopkins or OBJ or whomever, because I don't think that McBeane follow that philosophy, and therefore they aren't likely to be going there.  

 

Belichick won with an approach that's more like what McBeane are doing.  He'd spend on a shut-down corner, but only for guys who were going to be in that role for multiple years.   He tried the one-year rental with Chad Johnson, Randy Moss, and Antonio Brown, and he failed every time.  

[Chaos]

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

I get that you and others like the rental approach,

I don't like or dislike the rental approach. My only point is despite what any GM says, the rules dictate that everybody more or less follow the same strategy.  Teams are not at all in the same place in the cycle, so it may look different.  But the Chiefs, Ravens, Bills and Bengals are all following the exact same strategy because that the rules force it.  The team that is better at executing what the rules force does the best.  Last year I think the Chiefs played 11 different starters from the previous season at times.  Almost the opposite of continuity.  They had a brilliant draft netting four productive starters.  If the Bills had the chiefs draft and FA signing, and the Chiefs had the Bills draft and FA signing the results may have flipped flopped.  

[John from Riverside]

If people haven’t been noticing, and I know that they have Brandon does a lot of tinkering with the end of the roster and practice squad
 

This is not a big deal. We pretty much have our team that we’re heading to camp with unless one of these veteran defensive ends decides that they want to play for a cheaper contract.

[Shaw66]

7 minutes ago, Chaos said:

I don't like or dislike the rental approach. My only point is despite what any GM says, the rules dictate that everybody more or less follow the same strategy.  Teams are not at all in the same place in the cycle, so it may look different.  But the Chiefs, Ravens, Bills and Bengals are all following the exact same strategy because that the rules force it.  The team that is better at executing what the rules force does the best.  Last year I think the Chiefs played 11 different starters from the previous season at times.  Almost the opposite of continuity.  They had a brilliant draft netting four productive starters.  If the Bills had the chiefs draft and FA signing, and the Chiefs had the Bills draft and FA signing the results may have flipped flopped.  

I disagree. It's not about the roster moves. It's about the coaching.  Chiefs had Reid and Spagnolo, Bills had Frazier and Dorsey.

[Chandler#81]