McD’s fingerprints on draft choices

[BananaB]

4 hours ago, Chuck Schick said:

Hand-wringing over a handful of draft busts over the last 4 or 5 years is a waste of time.  It happens - and will continue to happen- to even the best of the best. 
if the busts were ridiculous reaches at the time (Maybin, EJ Manuel, etc) you’d have a leg to stand on, but they weren’t. 

Problem is we seem to be a few plays away year after year now. Picking these players that don’t even see the field or are inactive is huge problem for us. Maybe Elam will turn out like AJ and finally make an impact late in his rookie contract, maybe he’ll get traded for peanuts like Bashem. Either way these misses out impacting the team now. You can’t keep drafting lineman and then signing aging vets to do their job. It’s one thing to draft guys high and them not start for a year or so, it’s totally different when they are healthy scratches. That’s either poor scouting or poor development by the coaches. It seems to be a trend n Buffalo though. Trading day 1 and day 2 picks away before their rookie contracts up is terrible

Edited February 13 by BananaB

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

4 hours ago, starrymessenger said:

Mahomes won this year because he has Spags, a great secondary and Chris Jones.

Thankfully sneed and jones are free agents and will get huge offers from a bunch of teams.  Maybe they take team friendly deals to stay though

 

jones was the X factor all playoffs…can’t even stop him by egregiously holding him and egregious holds were going uncalled the entire playoffs 

[starrymessenger]

2 minutes ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

Thankfully sneed and jones are free agents and will get huge offers from a bunch of teams.  Maybe they take team friendly deals to stay though

 

jones was the X factor all playoffs…can’t even stop him by egregiously holding him and egregious holds were going uncalled the entire playoffs 

After seeing the Chiefs not called for frequent and blatant holds I thought it was unfortunate that the 49rs backup TE got called on their last drive for something that really didn't look like much to me. Total game changer when the refs appeared to want to let them play.

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

21 minutes ago, FilthyBeast said:

 

I'm pretty sure most fans agree with this, but who expects that to honestly change? If McDivisional can still have a job after trading Mahomes to the guy that fired him during his very first draft here, why wouldn't he still wield serious influence on all draft and FA decisions?

 

The sad reality is after watching the Chiefs defense carry them to another championship this year and teams like the Ravens and 49ers also play them down to the wire because of their respective strength on that side of the ball, I can almost guarantee that this draft (and what FA money is going to be there) is going to be defense heavy yet again especially since that's where most of the expected roster turnover is coming from.

The sad reality is we’re gonna try to draft the type of players that propelled kc to a championship and Baltimore to an afc championship and is also the side of the ball where the bulk of the players were losing are haha that’s a weird take to slap ‘sad reality’ in front of.

 

I wish they can have one of y’all be gm for a season and we can watch you run the franchise straight into the ground 😂. If we don’t draft a safety earlier in the draft we are absolute idiots and you will complain about the pick 100% lol 

 

We literally lost the game in large part because we were missing two huge and recent great defensive picks 

Edited February 13 by Generic_Bills_Fan

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

2 minutes ago, starrymessenger said:

After seeing the Chiefs not called for frequent and blatant holds I thought it was unfortunate that the 49rs backup TE got called on their last drive for something that really didn't look like much to me. Total game changer when the refs appeared to want to let them play.

If you can’t pressure the chiefs with 4 you need absolute gods in the secondary and people are complaining about defensive picks? Lol. I don’t get it.  The playoff officiating makes it nearly impossible to pressure them with 4. Bosa got completely taken out of the game by just getting held.  Seemed like the chiefs oline played it safe in the first half not knowing the extent of what they were gonna get away with then the second half was an absolute clown show 

[jkeerie]

11 minutes ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

Thankfully sneed and jones are free agents and will get huge offers from a bunch of teams.  Maybe they take team friendly deals to stay though

 

jones was the X factor all playoffs…can’t even stop him by egregiously holding him and egregious holds were going uncalled the entire playoffs 

I doubt it, especially with Jones.  He held out at the beginning of the season because he wants Aaron Donald money.  He has proven he deserves Aaron Donald money even more than Aaron Donald!    The same with Snead.  They will go with whoever offers the most money.  Once players have the rings...and they know they are a big reason as to why the team won the ring, the money becomes a huge priority.  

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

9 minutes ago, jkeerie said:

I doubt it, especially with Jones.  He held out at the beginning of the season because he wants Aaron Donald money.  He has proven he deserves Aaron Donald money even more than Aaron Donald!    The same with Snead.  They will go with whoever offers the most money.  Once players have the rings...and they know they are a big reason as to why the team won the ring, the money becomes a huge priority.  

I really don’t think he will either…I think they probably lock up sneed and then jones walks.  Maybe they grab a more reliable wr to try to even out the loss with the other side of the ball but jones is just stupid good.  They’ll get worse overall if he walks no matter what they do. Sneed and jones would probably cost them like 50m+ per year 

 

i mean we’ve all said it before and been wrong so it sounds kind of dumb saying it now 😂 but I think things are only gonna get tougher for them as time goes on with Kelce inching towards retirement and probably losing jones.  This whole ‘it was a down year and they still won’ thing isn’t making sense to me I don’t really see a path to them being better next season.

 

the offense might look a little prettier but they had jags stepping up all playoffs anyway.  Mvs couldn’t catch a cold in the regular season and he made a couple huge plays in multiple playoff games.  
 

its either keep jones and make no splash upgrades anywhere else or the reverse

Edited February 13 by Generic_Bills_Fan

[Sweats]

5 hours ago, BananaB said:

He did spent 3 second day picks on RBs in 4 years. And also traded for Heins 

 

 

How'd that work out for us?!?.........Cook......just Cook.

Problem with our HC and FO is, they like to draft guys out of scheme with our current personnel and expect to fit a square peg in a round hole.

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

8 minutes ago, Sweats said:

 

 

How'd that work out for us?!?.........Cook......just Cook.

Problem with our HC and FO is, they like to draft guys out of scheme with our current personnel and expect to fit a square peg in a round hole.

That’s a trade off every team makes not just us.  If you’re only open to perfect scheme fits the amount you have to reach to get a good player that did exactly what you’re trying to do in college can grow considerably 

 

this is not a unique buffalo bills deficiency at all lol 

 

 

[GunnerBill]

32 minutes ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

Thankfully sneed and jones are free agents and will get huge offers from a bunch of teams.  Maybe they take team friendly deals to stay though

 

jones was the X factor all playoffs…can’t even stop him by egregiously holding him and egregious holds were going uncalled the entire playoffs 

 

I think both will stay. The Chiefs have some cap questions, sure. But I can get them to $48m in cap space without a single "difficult" cut. 

 

That is more than enough for a relatively front loaded deal for Jones and backloaded deal for Sneed. 

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

3 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I think both will stay. The Chiefs have some cap questions, sure. But I can get them to $48m in cap space without a single "difficult" cut. 

 

That is more than enough for a relatively front loaded deal for Jones and backloaded deal for Sneed. 

Its def possible…but I’ve seen a lot of talk like ‘the defense is gonna be as good as this past season AND they’re gonna sign some big time wrs’ I dont think they can have both really.  

the prevailing opinion seems to be ‘this was a down year and they’re only gonna get better’ but pretty much all their resources would have to get thrown at maintaining that defense 

Edited February 13 by Generic_Bills_Fan

[GunnerBill]

1 minute ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

Its def possible…but I’ve seen a lot of talk like ‘the defense is gonna be as good as this past season AND they’re gonna sign some big time wrs’ I dont think they can have both really.  
 

 

Depends how much they are willing to kick the can. I actually like where they are cap wise this year. Can they go and trade for AJ Brown? No. Probably not. But they can probably bring one free moderate FA ticket in. I actually wouldn't be stunned if they went for Gabe Davis.

[hondo in seattle]

I haven't done the forensic analysis and don't know how much McD's "fingerprints" are on draft picks.  I don't know what input he's given to Beane (or, previously, Whaley) or how his suggestions panned out.  I could speculate but there's little definitive information in the public domain and any speculation would amount to a Sorry Wild Ass Guesses.  

 

 

[finn]

7 hours ago, Sweats said:

I've lost all faith in this regime that they can fairly evaluate talent at any level.

 

Spend a boat load of picks on the D every year in the draft and FA's and the D fails us every year with a D minded HC, mind you.....you see where i'm going with this?

Draft absolutely nothing of value for the O and expect JA to be a "one man show" every week.

It's disgusting.

 

And we wonder why we just can't seem to get over the hump and even just get to a SB, let alone win one.

Not sure you're being entirely fair to either Beane or McDermott. Putting aside injuries, look at this defense Beane provided: Miller, Oliver, Rousseau, Jones, Milano, Bernard, Taron, White, Benford, Poyer, and Hyde, with reasonable depth everywhere. Plus, he hit the jackpot with Floyd and Douglas when injuries did hit.

 

That's three All-Pros (Miller, White, and Milano), three Pro-Bowlers (Taron, Hyde, and Poyer), and three future Pro-Bowlers (Oliver, Rousseau, and Bernard). And Jones, who might have been their defensive MVP last year. Pretty good shooting.

 

Now look at the injuries: White, Milano, Miller, Hyde, Bernard, Jones, Benford. They lost SEVEN key players for either long stretches or for the playoffs over the past two years. And they still fielded a reasonable defense.

[BananaB]

28 minutes ago, finn said:

Not sure you're being entirely fair to either Beane or McDermott. Putting aside injuries, look at this defense Beane provided: Miller, Oliver, Rousseau, Jones, Milano, Bernard, Taron, White, Benford, Poyer, and Hyde, with reasonable depth everywhere. Plus, he hit the jackpot with Floyd and Douglas when injuries did hit.

 

That's three All-Pros (Miller, White, and Milano), three Pro-Bowlers (Taron, Hyde, and Poyer), and three future Pro-Bowlers (Oliver, Rousseau, and Bernard). And Jones, who might have been their defensive MVP last year. Pretty good shooting.

 

Now look at the injuries: White, Milano, Miller, Hyde, Bernard, Jones, Benford. They lost SEVEN key players for either long stretches or for the playoffs over the past two years. And they still fielded a reasonable defense.

They used enough resources they should field a solid D despite injuries. When ***** was going wrong early in the season did they do anything to help the O after Beanes prized WR signings ***** to bed, no they went out and did what they could to fix McDs defense. Oddly enough, despite all the injuries it was the least the Chiefs scored on them in 3 playoff games. Maybe that’s because our O held the ball for close to 2/3 of the game trying to dunk dunk down field all night long. WRs can’t get separation and when Allen makes an incredible throw they can’t catch.  Not really a surprise though, a lot of us didn’t buy into Beanes ***** about Davis’s ankle holding him back the year before. Nor did we buy into a couple Jags who been tossed around the league to be the answer. 

[Chaos]

Bills are a perennial top 8 team.  Beane and McDermott are both well on the path to be in the Hall of Very Good.  
There is no dramatic shortage of talent on the Bills.  Condemning the individual selections seems foolish. 

I do think its a mistake to try to build the mythical "complimentary football team", with no holes, and resources committed to huge rotations on the dline and resources purposely limited to special teams.   

I think the Bills would be better served to focus on building an offensive juggernaut around Allen.  They are actually at a pretty good starting point. Good line.  Great TE1 in Kincaid.  If the WR room can be built into something a bit better than it is now, it should be good.   

One more element of being an offensive Juggernaut : Its not clear McDermott/Dabol, McDermott/Dorsey or McDermott/Brady are the right leaders to for this effort. A change here would like be more impactful, than any personnel changes. (impactful does not mean better)

[FilthyBeast]

2 hours ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

The sad reality is we’re gonna try to draft the type of players that propelled kc to a championship and Baltimore to an afc championship and is also the side of the ball where the bulk of the players were losing are haha that’s a weird take to slap ‘sad reality’ in front of.

 

I wish they can have one of y’all be gm for a season and we can watch you run the franchise straight into the ground 😂. If we don’t draft a safety earlier in the draft we are absolute idiots and you will complain about the pick 100% lol 

 

We literally lost the game in large part because we were missing two huge and recent great defensive picks 

 

We weren't winning against the Chiefs even with a 100% healthy defense. Mahomes inevitably didn't care about the Ravens and 49ers who were pretty much 100% healthy in those games and vastly superior units across the board.

 

But back to the sad reality....McDivisional probably really believes his team lost because they weren't healthy on defense and will force Beane to waste draft picks on more marginal DE's that won't even do anything for this team as rookies anyway.

[Warriorspikes51]

E

7 minutes ago, Chaos said:

Bills are a perennial top 8 team.  Beane and McDermott are both well on the path to be in the Hall of Very Good.  
There is no dramatic shortage of talent on the Bills.  Condemning the individual selections seems foolish. 

I do think its a mistake to try to build the mythical "complimentary football team", with no holes, and resources committed to huge rotations on the dline and resources purposely limited to special teams.   

I think the Bills would be better served to focus on building an offensive juggernaut around Allen.  They are actually at a pretty good starting point. Good line.  Great TE1 in Kincaid.  If the WR room can be built into something a bit better than it is now, it should be good.   

One more element of being an offensive Juggernaut : Its not clear McDermott/Dabol, McDermott/Dorsey or McDermott/Brady are the right leaders to for this effort. A change here would like be more impactful, than any personnel changes. (impactful does not mean better)

1000%  there is NO excuse for anything less than adding 2 legit playmakers at WR 

[GunnerBill]

12 minutes ago, Chaos said:

Bills are a perennial top 8 team.  Beane and McDermott are both well on the path to be in the Hall of Very Good.  
There is no dramatic shortage of talent on the Bills.  Condemning the individual selections seems foolish. 

I do think its a mistake to try to build the mythical "complimentary football team", with no holes, and resources committed to huge rotations on the dline and resources purposely limited to special teams.   

I think the Bills would be better served to focus on building an offensive juggernaut around Allen.  They are actually at a pretty good starting point. Good line.  Great TE1 in Kincaid.  If the WR room can be built into something a bit better than it is now, it should be good.   

One more element of being an offensive Juggernaut : Its not clear McDermott/Dabol, McDermott/Dorsey or McDermott/Brady are the right leaders to for this effort. A change here would like be more impactful, than any personnel changes. (impactful does not mean better)

 

I agree to an extent that the have no holes be solid everywhere focus is the wrong approach. Although as I have explained elsewhere in recent days their Dline rotation really isn't out of sync with the other good teams. It is the way the NFL is going. Nobody plays their best 4 guys 75/80 % of the time. The issue for the Bills is they have ONLY had high picks and decent FA vet contracts in that rotation with the exception of Justin Zimmer. The dline is not a spot where they have taken any day 3 shots in the draft as a result because they have been "well stocked" and as Beane always says once you get into round 5 and beyond "where does a guy have a chance to make the roster?" becomes a valid part of your selection process. The single biggest change I'd make to the way they have drafted is to re-allocate some of the earlier assets on dline and running back to wide receiver. But equally I am not shocked they haven't - in the 10 drafts that Beane was in a senior position in the Carolina front office they spent a pick in the top 3 rounds on wide receivers just three times. When Beane arrived I did a breakdown of what they valued in Carolina and what they didn't and it has pretty much stayed true. Don't take WRs and OTs early. Do take Dline, running backs and linebackers early. They took NINE DLine in the first 3 rounds in those 10 years. 

 

But to that being said I still don't think the issue is whether it is defense or offense. The issue is elite level talent. I have consistently felt like we are 1 or 2 guys short of the other competing teams in that regard. I think we have been deeper in a lot of spots. Arguably more complete. But our best 21 around Josh doesn't have as much very top end talent as other best 21s around Mahomes, Burrows, Jackson, Hurts, Purdy, Prescott etc. 

[BBFL]

Whether you like it or not, your HC should be the only ones who’s fingerprints are on the draft. The GM’s on trades and the owners on HC/Front Office. 
 

The coaching staff has to be able to select the people they believe and know will be best suited. 
 

It may end up bad or wrong but you can’t deny them the option to make the plan and vision they have as best a chance to succeed.