What if all this isnt about this year but next year?

[msw2112]

It's still early in the process.  There are 6 more rounds of the draft, the Bills have 10+ picks, there are UDFAs to sign, there are post-June 1 cuts, and then training camp cuts.  There's also potential for trades.  This is not to mention that Josh Allen is in his prime, the Bills have a number of other good players, and Mahomes could tear his ACL in Week 2 and be out for the season.  So despite the loss of several veteran players, it's too early to write the season off. 

[Ethan in Cleveland]

If they are not trying to win the SuperBowl every year with Josh then they should both be fired. 

 

You think any Rams fan cares they didn't make the playoffs after winning the SuperBowl. 

 

[cwater10]

5 hours ago, mjt328 said:

Josh Allen will be 28 years old when the season starts.

The absolute prime of his career.  

 

Yes.  There is a reasonable explanation for all of Brandon Beane's offseason moves.  Why he surprisingly cut Mitch Morse (along with several other veterans).  Why he decided not to restructure all of Allen's contract, and did almost nothing in Free Agency.  Why he traded Stefon Diggs and took on tons of dead cap.  Why he decided not to move up in the draft this year for a Top 3 receiver.  And I'm sure many of the level-headed and conservative critics are applauding those moves.

 

The problem is that ALL of Beane's decisions are geared to help us in 2025.  But nothing has been done to give the Bills a better chance at winning the Super Bowl in 2024.  Our roster is significantly weaker than any point in the last 3-4 seasons, with much less depth across the board.  Can anyone honestly compare our talent level versus the Chiefs (again), Bengals, Texans, Ravens... or even the Jets, and think we will be a serious contender in the AFC this year?  

 

We only get so many cracks at this thing before Allen's best years are behind him, and we seem to be content punting away this upcoming season and reloading for the future.  Maybe we can argue it was the "smartest" thing for the franchise.  But personally, I think it's depressing.

 

If only the salary cap and the need to replace aging players with rapidly declining skills were not a reality, well then I might see your point.  Since those factors ARE real, I believe Beane has done a nice job of embracing that reality and addressing it.  Would you prefer that we give OBJ a bag of money for a year along with a key to the city?  I would rather deal in the reality of an evolving roster.  It never stops...

[mjt328]

42 minutes ago, cwater10 said:

If only the salary cap and the need to replace aging players with rapidly declining skills were not a reality, well then I might see your point.  Since those factors ARE real, I believe Beane has done a nice job of embracing that reality and addressing it.  Would you prefer that we give OBJ a bag of money for a year along with a key to the city?  I would rather deal in the reality of an evolving roster.  It never stops...

 

My preference would have been to balance the losses/gains between 2024-2025.

 

Going into the offseason, I absolutely expected us to make some tough moves (White, Poyer, Hyde) to clear cap space.  But I figured we would offset those losses with some cheap moves in Free Agency, and be right back in the thick of things for another serious Super Bowl push.  What I didn't expect was Beane to gut the roster and start rebuilding.

 

There are three specific moves that I will point to, which prove that Beane is building for 2025 and not this upcoming season:

1)  Only doing a partial restructure on Josh Allen's contract

2)  Cutting Mitch Morse when he was still playing well

3)  Trading Stefon Diggs for a pick next year without a specific plan to immediately replace his production

 

Maybe Beane knows best and starting from scratch is really the best strategy for this organization.  We can load up on young talent in this draft, watch them develop in 2024, clear a ton of cap space and hopefully everything will be ready to go again a year from now.  Personally I think it's a mistake to waste a prime year of Josh Allen's career, and I find it depressing to take a step backwards when other franchises seem to keep it rolling season after season.  I also think a lot of fans are currently in denial about where the current Bills roster stands.

 

[Ethan in Cleveland]

1 hour ago, cwater10 said:

If only the salary cap and the need to replace aging players with rapidly declining skills were not a reality, well then I might see your point.  Since those factors ARE real, I believe Beane has done a nice job of embracing that reality and addressing it.  Would you prefer that we give OBJ a bag of money for a year along with a key to the city?  I would rather deal in the reality of an evolving roster.  It never stops...

We will see what he does in the next 12 hours.  

There still was no reason to trade Diggs at this time and make your team worse.  They could just have easily kept Diggs and still traded down and still drafted a WR. 

Now they need to add at least two WRs to even have a roster of 5 NFL caliber WRs.    There are still several name UFA out there Beane can add after June 1st.  They may already have a deal in place for one of them.  

 

[Bigstu]

Yes it was frustrating to not have a #1 pick, but we are now loaded for day 2 & 3. We have a chance to get starting WR and DB in the 2nd round. we need depth and now have the picks to do it. Just like a game, the 1st quarter is over, but lets win the game

[ticketssince61]

7 hours ago, mjt328 said:

Josh Allen will be 28 years old when the season starts.

The absolute prime of his career.  

 

Yes.  There is a reasonable explanation for all of Brandon Beane's offseason moves.  Why he surprisingly cut Mitch Morse (along with several other veterans).  Why he decided not to restructure all of Allen's contract, and did almost nothing in Free Agency.  Why he traded Stefon Diggs and took on tons of dead cap.  Why he decided not to move up in the draft this year for a Top 3 receiver.  And I'm sure many of the level-headed and conservative critics are applauding those moves.

 

The problem is that ALL of Beane's decisions are geared to help us in 2025.  But nothing has been done to give the Bills a better chance at winning the Super Bowl in 2024.  Our roster is significantly weaker than any point in the last 3-4 seasons, with much less depth across the board.  Can anyone honestly compare our talent level versus the Chiefs (again), Bengals, Texans, Ravens... or even the Jets, and think we will be a serious contender in the AFC this year?  

 

We only get so many cracks at this thing before Allen's best years are behind him, and we seem to be content punting away this upcoming season and reloading for the future.  Maybe we can argue it was the "smartest" thing for the franchise.  But personally, I think it's depressing.

 

 

We were over the cap and  most of the players that were let go were a combo of

a) too expensive

b) on the down side of their careers

c) apparent malcontents

d) coming off injuries

 

We traded down JUST 5 spots and ended up with a 3rd round pick and much better draft positions - I think a pretty good move

 

I am sure Beane's plan is to use some of those later picks to get us back into better position in the 2nd and 3rd rounds and we can end up with hopefully 4 or 5 starters out of the draft

 

[HomeskillitMoorman]

8 hours ago, Buffalo Boy said:

   Maybe, just maybe, the plan is to hang McD out to dry while clearing cap space.

   That way, they can Can his arse late/ after the season and go into next year ready to fill the coffers for a “Not Schottenheimer 2.0”

    He also gets to blame the mediocre season on McD and get some of his ball boys on here to see the light.

    Oh, a man can dream🤔

 

If it meant the rest of Josh's career here without McD, I would punt a year in exchange for that with zero hesitation

[oldmanfan]

6 hours ago, mjt328 said:

 

Pretend for a moment you aren't a Bills fan, and you are objectively looking at this roster from the outside.

 

The team has quite obviously taken a step backwards at several key positions (Wide Receiver, Safety and Edge Rusher).  Less talented players will now be expected to step into starting spots and play more snaps.  At other positions, there is also less depth when the inevitable injuries happen (Offensive Line, Defensive Tackle).  Not to mention the significant loss of leadership, with five longtime veterans walking out the door (Stefon Diggs, Mitch Morse, Tre White, Jordan Poyer, Micah Hyde).  The biggest remaining star on defense (Matt Milano) is returning from a major leg injury.

 

Yes, there are still 4 months left until the start of the regular season.  But I'm struggling to see the pathway where we can fill all these spots with guys who can make an impact in 2024.  The veteran FA market has pretty much dried up, and we won't have cap space until June 1.  The rookies who could have made an immediate Year 1 impact are already gone.  

 

This team wasn't good enough in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023.  Can anyone honestly say this roster looks BETTER in 2024?

I’ll take these in order:

 

WR:  They traded a guy on the north side of 30 who did not play that well the last half of last season.  That corresponded to the new OC taking over.  So we lost Diggs but until the draft is over we don’t know if we downgraded.

 

S:  lost two older guys that had lost a step and replaced with younger guys in Rapp and Edwards

 

O line:  lost Morse, good run block but was having trouble with rushing DTs.  Added depth with Collins.  No problem here.

 

Edge:  lost one guy in Floyd who slowed down a lot the last half of the year

 

Biggest star on defense:  Milano we will see, but ignoring guys like Oliver and Bernard and Douglas is ridiculous

 

So are we better?  Impossible to know until the draft is done, camp is done, and games are played.

54 minutes ago, Ethan in Cleveland said:

We will see what he does in the next 12 hours.  

There still was no reason to trade Diggs at this time and make your team worse.  They could just have easily kept Diggs and still traded down and still drafted a WR. 

Now they need to add at least two WRs to even have a roster of 5 NFL caliber WRs.    There are still several name UFA out there Beane can add after June 1st.  They may already have a deal in place for one of them.  

 

I assumed then and do now that Josh was consulted about Diggs and he wanted him gone, that he was tired of the nonsense.

[djp14150]

12 hours ago, steven50 said:

I was going to do a poll but then realized I had no clue how to do a poll so here is the question:

 

How would you feel if the Bills traded the two 2nd round picks and the third rounder (or some other combination of picks) for a (projected) low to mid/low 1st rounder next year?

 

The cap situation will be a lot better next year and with 2 first round picks and an aggressive free agency that could be the teams "all in" year. Bean went out of his way to say he was already getting calls and I doubt he traded out of the first round twice without the owner in on it so this probably has Pegula's blessing and jobs are safe.

 

If Bills management reasoned they didn't have the firepower (cap space and picks) to substantially upgrade the team this year, then they might have also rationalized why not start planting the seeds for next year.

 

 

You don’t do thst.

 

it’s common for teams to trade next years 1st for a high 2nd round pick

 

next year they should have their 1st and 2 2nds

[BullBuchanan]

It is about next year - but that means getting talent this year to be ready. We're replacing 7 important pieces on our team this year. Hopefully next year that number is 2-3, and hopefully we aren't depending on the draft for immediate impact starters.

This year is just about getting the next generation of guys up to speed while we eat a bunch of bad contracts and hopefully keeping a winning culture going.

[JaCrispy]

I’ve been saying this all year…

 

Regardless of what people want to believe, we are in the beginning of a 2-year mini rebuild…We are not supposed to be legit contenders this year…It’s about building a new foundation…But if it happens, it happens

[CodeMonkey]

11 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

This.

 

It's about every year. That's their goal, as they've said many many times. They want to be competitive every year.

 

And there's every chance they'll be competitive this year as long as Allen is healthy.

 

They did this because based on their board and how the draft fell, they felt this was the most effective use of their picks. Doesn't mean anyone else has to agree. But that's what they thought.

 

 

 

That's what the Bills have been the past few seasons and from a business perspective it has worked out well for them. They can get the new stadium, probably have enough interest to sell PSL's.  Competitive makes great business sense.  It can cost a lot to take a shot at the superbowl.

[Alphadawg7]

13 hours ago, steven50 said:

I was going to do a poll but then realized I had no clue how to do a poll so here is the question:

 

Poll is easy, top of starting new post there is a tab to add a poll  

 

13 hours ago, steven50 said:

 

How would you feel if the Bills traded the two 2nd round picks and the third rounder (or some other combination of picks) for a (projected) low to mid/low 1st rounder next year?

 

0% chance that is happening.  Beane literally said he had planned on picking at 32 until Carolina called last minute.  So there are guys he likes here and he specifically stated the importance on getting more picks in the first 95 picks as critical to this draft.  

 

He isn't gutting all our picks for next year.

 

13 hours ago, steven50 said:

The cap situation will be a lot better next year and with 2 first round picks and an aggressive free agency that could be the teams "all in" year. Bean went out of his way to say he was already getting calls and I doubt he traded out of the first round twice without the owner in on it so this probably has Pegula's blessing and jobs are safe.

 

0% chance he had to get the Pegulas blessing to move back 4 spots and then 1 spot.  That is his job, he isn't on the hot seat, he has the one of the best track records in the NFL since his hiring in the draft.  Pegulas are not meddling or signing off on minor routine moves like that.  

 

13 hours ago, steven50 said:

 

If Bills management reasoned they didn't have the firepower (cap space and picks) to substantially upgrade the team this year, then they might have also rationalized why not start planting the seeds for next year.

 

 

 

What gives you that idea?  Because we moved back 5 spaces in a very deep draft to get a valuable 3rd round pick back we didn't have and added much more value later too?  No disrespect, but its like someone of you think the NFL draft is a 1 round thing or bust.  2nd and 3rd round picks are very valuable and its how you build rosters.  Moving back 5 picks changed nothing on who we will draft and we added great value to our draft arsenal.  

 

[GunnerBill]

Beane traded back twice at the end of round 1 because he had no first round grades left. It's as simple as that.

[Comebackkid]

with all the draft pics we acumulated i could see this being a year of  restocking the shelves with cheap

players and then next year being the one we bring in higher end talent