Training Camp 8/1 9:45

[BADOLBILZ]

5 minutes ago, 2020 Our Year For Sure said:

Well that's exactly what HappyDays and Badolbilz are doing for us, managing our expectations and helping us understand these guys are just not very good.

 

A LOT of people here have expressed a LOT of optimism about Kahlil Shakir this offseason.

 

 

He's quickly falling from "I had a 2nd round grade on him" to "just a 5th round pick, whaddya' expect?".   

[Solomon Grundy]

2 hours ago, Beck Water said:

 

 

Pundits are totally not recognizing he's a member of the Bills now 

[Fred Slacks]

When interpreting tweets as fact I say wait for video.  Example the Damar Hamlin pick 6 in today's practice.  Hardly a pick six.  Interception yes but he was touched while down by the receiver.  I am sure some of these guys got burned on the OL.  However it's early in camp.  Spencer Brown is a pretty good run blocker.  I am excited to watch him nd Torrance on some run plays.  Maybe on pass we need to chip his side.  Time will tell.

[That's No Moon]

1 minute ago, Solomon Grundy said:

Pundits are totally not recognizing he's a member of the Bills now 

He's also rushing against a series of pylons.

[GoBills808]

17 minutes ago, NewEra said:

Kincaid and Cook will be enough as long as the OL holds up.  
 

I think Harty will make several big plays this season.  
 

I think Sherfields versatility and run blocking will get him some run.  
 

By all accounts Gabe Davis has looked better than ever so far this training camp.

 

 

 

 

 

If we stay healthy and Spencer Brown isn’t a detriment we have as good a shot as anyone imo
 

 

So Kincaid I do expect to contribute because he has the pedigree but if Cook is weak in pass pro that muddies his role imo

 

I can't put anything more into Sherfield/Hardy than hope they make a few big plays over the course like you say, certainly not relying on them to be actual contributing NFL caliber wideouts a la Emmanuel Sanders

 

Which brings us to Shakir having a fairly important role...which imo is reasonable cause for concern if he can't be reliable since he's behind Mr Unreliability in Davis. 

[MasterStrategist]

11 minutes ago, 2020 Our Year For Sure said:

Well that's exactly what HappyDays and Badolbilz are doing for us, managing our expectations and helping us understand these guys are just not very good.

 

A LOT of people here have expressed a LOT of optimism about Kahlil Shakir this offseason.

I guess predicting a player to be cut Or play a meaningless role is one way of setting expectations.

 

My realistic expectations for Shakir: 500-600 yards, 3 Tds.  That seems way different than those posters, you quoted.  

 

I'd expect the same for Kincaid, with more TDs.

 

Harty is a wild card to me, if he's healthy we have 6 guys that could go over 500 yards: Diggs, Davis, Shakir, Kincaid, Knox, and Harty

 

[GoBills808]

13 minutes ago, Fred Slacks said:

When interpreting tweets as fact I say wait for video.  Example the Damar Hamlin pick 6 in today's practice.  Hardly a pick six.  Interception yes but he was touched while down by the receiver.  I am sure some of these guys got burned on the OL.  However it's early in camp.  Spencer Brown is a pretty good run blocker.  I am excited to watch him nd Torrance on some run plays.  Maybe on pass we need to chip his side.  Time will tell.

Kind of speaks to the whole context issue

 

Personally I would take Damar Hamlin camp reports w a grain of salt all things considered...if someone reads a tweet that says 'Hamlin pick6' and gets excited that's kind of on them imo

[BillsShredder83]

24 minutes ago, gonzo1105 said:

 

Haha you said Sharty 🤣

Haha - username 'gonzo' also said Sharty

[Beck Water]

31 minutes ago, SCBills said:

No, we didn't basically add one guy to our OL.  

 

Did the Chiefs not build an elite OL (in part) due to drafting two top tier IOL in Creed Humphrey and Trey Smith?

 

So it's worth noting that Creed Humphrey was regarded as a top-tier C in the 2021 draft, but drafted late in the 2nd round (63rd)

 

However, Trey Smith was a 6th round pick for a reason.  The Chiefs got the "steal of the draft" there.

 

The Chiefs totally rebuilt their OL that off-season, including signing Joe Thuney who had 2 Superbowl rings with the Pats and is still the #5 paid guard on AAV, and trading a 1st round pick for Orlando Brown on a 2 year rental.  The only player they kept was Andrew Wylie, who had played guard for them the previous year, and Lucas Niang, a 3rd round 2020 pick.

 

The point that I tried (apparently unsuccessfully) to make elsewhere, is that investing "enough" resources in OL is in part, a judgement made in hindsight, after it is shown to work.  If it hadn't worked, it would have been "what a stupid move to trade a 1st 3rd 4th and 2022 5th for Orlando Brown who is really a RT, and it just was a bad idea to be choosing between a 6th round rookie and a 8 yr former 6th round pick coming back off a year's sabbatical at RG.  And did we really want to bet the season on a rookie at C?"  Fortunately for the Chiefs, it all worked out.  Now maybe that's great scouting on their part, but remember they had to rebuild the line because their FO judgement in previous years was that what they had was "enough".

 

31 minutes ago, SCBills said:

By all accounts, Torrence was the best pure Guard in the Draft.  He slid because teams (ours included) value position flex on the OL.  Given we have so much of that, we can take a swing on a guy who can only play Guard.  

 

McGovern is entering his prime years, and is an above average pass blocker / slightly below average run blocker up to this point.    In today's NFL, that's the DNA of a good Offensive Lineman with some further potential. 

 

So if we're looking at the Chiefs 6th round rookie RG as a "top tier OL", it is worth noting that the Bills have regularly taken late round and UDFA shots at OL.  Last year it was Luke Tenuta, who is now playing for the Packers.  This year it was Nick Broeker (who, per NFL Draft Profile, sounds like a poor match for us but we saw something).  2021 was Tommy Doyle and Jack Anderson.  The only year we didn't draft an OLman was 2020.

 

Anyway: have the Bills done "enough" on OL?  Well, they didn't trade half their draft for a LT, but theoretically Dawkins is a good quality LT.

They didn't draft a C, but Morse has been reliable.  They added two guards in FA, with Connor McGovern as the bigger FA signing and David Edwards, who played 3 years for the Rams including on their superbowl winning team as the dark horse "is he back from concussions?" add.  Drafted a guard. 

 

To me, the questionmarks are:

1) is Spencer Brown "enough" at RT?  Brown looked OK and flashed as a rookie struggling with a back injury, did not look as good this season, and has had some bad outings in pre-season.  If Brown can't get it done, behind him we have

-Brandon Shell, Jets 5th round pick in 2016, who has started 72 games for 3 teams in 7 seasons.  He was with the Jets for 4 seasons before signing in Seattle, played out his 2 year contract there but ended on IR, then signed to Miami's PS after not drawing FA interest (likely due to the injury).  He started 11 games last season.  He's shown he can play ok if he's healthy, he's struggled a bit with injuries I believe.

-David Quessenberry.  He was not an improvement on Brown last season from what I saw.

-Alec Anderson, 2022 UDFA signing from UCLA, PS last season - so he's had a year to learn Kromer's system

-Richard Gouraige, 2023 UDFA.  He keeps drawing mentions from the guys watching practice.

2) is Connor McGovern (or failing him, David Edwards or Ike Boettger (1.5+ years off Achilles) or Kevin Jarvis (coming off IR as a 22 UDFA) a significant upgrade on Rodger Saffold, who was a huge disappointment to me as last year's FA signing?

 

 

[Bangarang]

39 minutes ago, GoBills808 said:

You really think he's going to be at the bottom of the depth chart, I don't

At best he’s 4th on the WR depth chart and given how well Kinkaid is playing and what we expect his role to be, I don’t see how Shakir gets a ton of snaps on game days. 

[Beck Water]

1 hour ago, wppete said:

Is Tommy Doyle fully healthy? Haven’t heard anything about him this off-season. 

 

That's a really great question.  As I recall, he was participating in minicamp.  I can't find anything about him being placed on PUP or the like.

I haven't heard anything about him, good or bad.

[NickelCity]

6 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

 

-Richard Gouraige, 2023 UDFA.  He keeps drawing mentions from the guys watching practice.

 

 

I should know this, but has Gouriage been practicing on the right?

[Beck Water]

2 hours ago, Allen2Diggs said:

Shakir got very few snaps last season, but I don't remember him dropping many passes. Crowder and Mckenzie on the other hand...

 

Shakir got 275 snaps on offense last season (close to 30% of the offensive snaps).

In those snaps, he had 20 targets and 10 receptions  - a 50% catch rate.  I don't dis him for that, since we don't know if he was scored as "targeted" on throw-aways, but he did have 2 scored drops (10% drops).

 

For the record, that's higher than Davis and McKenzie, the TBD Drop Whipping Boys.

 

I'm not sure why you mention Crowder.  He had no scored drops last season.

[BillsShredder83]

6 minutes ago, Bangarang said:

At best he’s 4th on the WR depth chart and given how well Kinkaid is playing and what we expect his role to be, I don’t see how Shakir gets a ton of snaps on game days. 

 

i dont think this changes much, but its noteworthy Shakir had taken a considerable amount of snaps on the outside in college (as well as out of the backfield). If he's spelling in the slot, and they could find a way to get him some snaps in certain packages in the other 2 spots.  I just keep seeing everyone saying hes only a slot WR

[Dr.Mantis_Toboggan]

If Torrence shines, and Brown continues to struggle, do they try Bates at RT? Bates has been at minimum serviceable at every spot he’s manned on the OL, played tackle in college, not sure how much at the pro level, but it’s certainly not looking great for Brown out there based on early reports.

 

Hopefully it’s simply a case of the pass rush finally being the dominant force McBeane has been trying to build since day 1.

[Beck Water]

6 minutes ago, NickelCity said:

 

I should know this, but has Gouriage been practicing on the right?

 

That's a great question.  I went looking for mentions of him, and the ones I've found were in drills.  Which is not to say there aren't any in team work, just I couldn't find them.

[sven233]

By all accounts, the QB and the weapons have been awesome.  From everything we get to hear, Allen, Diggs, Davis, Kincaid, Knox, Harty, Cook, and Sherfield have looked really good and have made great plays all camp.  It sounds like Dorsey has modified and diversified the offense just like we wanted him to do. 

 

But there's a big problem.  None of this means anything if the offensive line can't block anyone.

 

I haven't been out there myself, but I watch and read everything coming out of camp.  To me, it's a becoming a bit worrisome that the only guy I haven't heard about getting absolutely abused on the offensive line is Torrence.  While I am not really too worried about Morse, and McGovern to a lesser extent, Brown getting worked on a daily basis is a problem.  Dawkins sounds like he's having a rough go of it at times as well and that is a big problem when both your starting tackles are struggling.  You can have all the weapons in the world, but if you can't keep Allen clean with 5 guys, that has a chance to ruin everything you want to do on offense.

 

While I think Dawkins will be able to get it together good enough, and I think the coaches will come around and realize that Torrence is one of their best 5, I don't know what they are going to do at RT.  Brown, while having all the athletic ability in the world, just seems lost and should be nowhere near starting for this team.  The thing is, we all saw this as a huge potential problem but yet Beane and the coaching staff did nothing to bring in real competition for him.  They put all of their eggs in the Brown basket and they look like they're breaking.  They need to fix this.  It only takes one weak link on the offensive line to blow up the whole thing.  All of a sudden you need to leave a back or TE in to chip or block. 

 

I don't know what they are going to do about it.  Probably nothing.  While they preach day after day that playing time is earned and not given, this doesn't seem to be the case with Brown.  For whatever reason, they are infatuated with him and just don't seem to think he's a problem like we all do.  Guess we all just have to hope the light bulb comes on at some point real soon.

[WotAGuy]

Can we all agree that we’re gonna use “Sharty” from now on?

[NewEra]

For ***** and giggles, 2022 Pff ratings 

Spencer Brown 51

David quessenberry 59

Brandon Shell 64

 

whats it mean?  not much considering the FO feels Brown was only a 51 due to his injury.  

 

 

[2020 Our Year For Sure]

32 minutes ago, MasterStrategist said:

I guess predicting a player to be cut Or play a meaningless role is one way of setting expectations.

 

My realistic expectations for Shakir: 500-600 yards, 3 Tds.  That seems way different than those posters, you quoted.  

 

I'd expect the same for Kincaid, with more TDs.

 

Harty is a wild card to me, if he's healthy we have 6 guys that could go over 500 yards: Diggs, Davis, Shakir, Kincaid, Knox, and Harty

 

You can play poorly and get volume stats if you get lots of targets from Josh Allen so I don't know what your expectations for his level of play actually are.