Which battle in camp are you watching the closest?

[LeGOATski]

The IOL and it is the only one in my mind that plays a critical role in team success.

 

Then I'm watching the WRs closely. Maybe it's not really considered a battle, but that group is a huge question mark.

[Don Otreply]

39 minutes ago, Special K said:

Soooooo.......the whole team??😁 

 

I'm interested to see if SVPG can make a push for starting Center, if Cole Bishop cracks the starting lineup right away, and how the WR room shakes out.

Yes 😁👍

[Alphadawg7]

3 hours ago, Beast said:

Wide Receivers. I believe any one of 4 or 5 could end up being our #1 and a couple of those guys that have the chance to be the #1 also have a chance of not making the squad.

 

Are you referring to say target volume or the actual X WR role, your WR1 spot?  If it's the actual WR1 spot, then that is Keon barring some sort of injury or disastrous camp.  If its target volume, then that is probably a 3 way battler between Keon, Kincaid, and Shakir on who is kind of the go to guy in terms of targets per game.  

 

For me the bigger question is who takes the bulk of the snaps opposite Keon as the other boundary WR.  We know Shakir will mix in some there, but I think its pretty clear he will take more snaps from the slot and attack all over the field from there more than the outside.  So will that be Samuel when Shakir is inside, or will someone like Chase, Hollins, or MVS rise up and get those snaps is the question I am really intrigued by.  

[HOUSE]

Its all about Punting !

I will be watching for Matt  Haack , I know he will be out there somewhere 

 

 

Edited June 7 by HOUSE

[BuffaloBillyG]

6 minutes ago, HOUSE said:

I will be watching for Matt  Haack , I know he is there somewhere 

I hear he and AJ Klein are sharing a Winnabego out in the parking lot. From what I understand its going to make one HECK of an episode of the mid season Hard Knocks.

[Einstein's Dog]

I'm with many that are interested in the outside WRs.

 

Also RB2 - if/when Davis can overtake Ty.

[Mark Vader]

The Rugby Player Vs. The Wrestler!

[Evansfan322]

9 hours ago, FireChans said:

I want SVPG to win the center battle asap and move McGovern back to LG. 

Me too. I think Dawkins had the season that he did because he could count on McGovern 

[Beast]

7 hours ago, Alphadawg7 said:

 

Are you referring to say target volume or the actual X WR role, your WR1 spot?  If it's the actual WR1 spot, then that is Keon barring some sort of injury or disastrous camp.  If its target volume, then that is probably a 3 way battler between Keon, Kincaid, and Shakir on who is kind of the go to guy in terms of targets per game.  

 

For me the bigger question is who takes the bulk of the snaps opposite Keon as the other boundary WR.  We know Shakir will mix in some there, but I think its pretty clear he will take more snaps from the slot and attack all over the field from there more than the outside.  So will that be Samuel when Shakir is inside, or will someone like Chase, Hollins, or MVS rise up and get those snaps is the question I am really intrigued by.  

Coleman hasn’t proven anything. He certainly is going to be given every opportunity but the Bills are not in a position to be patient. 

[Alphadawg7]

2 hours ago, Beast said:

Coleman hasn’t proven anything. He certainly is going to be given every opportunity but the Bills are not in a position to be patient. 

He’s already penciled into job though, he’s not so much battling for it like how say Hollins, Claypool, and MVS are battling for their place in the pecking order.  He would have to either get hurt or have a pretty disastrous camp for someone in the bottom half of the WR room to over take him while they simultaneously had a sensational camp.

 

And Coleman was one of the more NFL ready WRs in the draft and has already shown early signs that make the concept of him having a disastrous camp feel pretty unlikely.   
 

So you’re not wrong, he hasn’t proven anything, but he’s shown enough that the idea that anyone but him will be playing the X WR1 position week 1 feels pretty unlikely.  

[GunnerBill]

Safety. Because unless Bishop can win a job in camp it is the weakest unit we will put on the field week 1.

[Buffalo716]

10 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

Safety. Because unless Bishop can win a job in camp it is the weakest unit we will put on the field week 1.

On paper and experience certainly....

 

McD is a DB savant... We could start cam lewis at FS and I wouldn't be in a super panic mode

 

I trust whoever gets the majority of reps in training camp and PS to play well... It's certainly going to be interesting without poyer and Hyde back there 

 

[Robert Paulson]

On 6/7/2024 at 11:23 AM, Mr. WEO said:

Punter, obvs...

You mean holder since we don't plan on punting more than once a game this year.

 

Whoever is the best holder will win the job.

8 hours ago, Buffalo716 said:

On paper and experience certainly....

 

McD is a DB savant... We could start cam lewis at FS and I wouldn't be in a super panic mode

 

I trust whoever gets the majority of reps in training camp and PS to play well... It's certainly going to be interesting without poyer and Hyde back there 

 

Remember we had old, injured and slow poyer and hyde last year- not all pro po and all world  Hyde from 3 years ago.

 

I don't expect the safety play to drop off and could be a slight improvement as long as Rapp stops taking out our own players and stops getting late hit calls. Dude has to reel it back a smidge.

Edited June 8 by Robert Paulson

[Robert Paulson]

15 hours ago, Evansfan322 said:

Me too. I think Dawkins had the season that he did because he could count on McGovern 

Plus he was focused more on football and not Friday dance party once Lil dirty left.

[NickelCity]

IOL and WR are fairly obvious, but I'm also watching Safety closely. I think Bishop might have a slow start considering a totally new system as well as improving his coverage skills. Fingers crossed he comes out of the gate on fire and my hand wringing is for nothing. 

[PBF81]

21 hours ago, Rocky Landing said:

WR depth:

I've seen several posters on this site predict that the WR room will look something like:

Coleman, Shakir, Samuel, MVS, Claypool, Hollins.

 

I just don't see it happening like that. At the end of the day, they're not just going to take the best five, or six WRs. This will be the first time Joe Brady gets his offense installed, and the WRs who make it will be the ones who fill certain roles in that offense (plus special teams). In the above list, I would assume Coleman, and Shakir to be locks, and Samuel to be pretty close to a lock. After that it's a battle, and I very much doubt there will be so much redundancy on the roster. If they don't like one of the smaller, speedier guys, like KJ Hamler (my dark horse), or Isabella, they may only carry five. JMO.

 

But looking at how they've been building the roster so far this offseason, it's evident they want size on this unit. So, look at MVS, Hollins, Claypool, Shorter, and Shavers, and pick two.

 

With you here, but I'll add to it.  I'm not so much interested in the competition among the WRs.  It seems pretty clear that the two leading receivers on this team should be and likely will be Shakir and Kincaid.  If we weren't forcing ourselves into this "complimentary football" model it shouldn't be unreasonable to expect Shakir to post well over 1,000 receiving yards and 8+ TDs.  I'd anticipate receiving yards in the order of Shakir, kincaid, Samuel, Cook and then who knows.  Coleman is not NFL ready despite narratives.  Top draft profiling sites have him listed as eventually being an average starter.  IMO that's generous.  I do not see him even approaching success in the X-WR role.  

 

For me it's more of what their plan is in the passing game.  It keeps changing from season to season and has once again changed, now purportedly being a short-medium game.  The curiosity for me is that this does not feed into Allen's strengths as a passer, it feeds more into a game-managing QB role.  

 

Some rhetorical questions: 

 

Will they allow Allen and provide for him to go deep as often as he likes to?   Certainly our WR roster isn't built for that.  Shakir is the only WR that has proven anything that is capable of going deep with much aplomb.  Coleman in the X-role begs questioning.  

 

They obviously want him to throw short-medium more, how will he be in that role given that if he has a weakness, that's it.  Last season his completion % and rating plummeted from 70.3% and 96.6 to 60.7% and 85.5 going from Dorsey to Brady.  That's a 10% drop in compl.% and 15 point drop in rating, which is enormous.  It's over a third-way down drop in rating ranking and from first to DFL in compl.% ranking.  His passing scoring production was cut by 26%.  He averaged a mere 1 passing TD in his last five games.  

 

What will impact the passing game is their plans for running the ball.  Cook petered out last season averaging a bottom-dwelling 3.6 YPC under Brady not including that Dallas game.  Even with the Dallas game he averaged 4.3 under Brady, very average, and a drop from 5.1 under Dorsey.  Is the plan to use Davis in a big role?  How is that different than when we had Singletary and Moss, both of which came into the league with greater draft potential than Davis.  

 

It seems that this team is going to continue to try to play '90s football despite our core talent being capable of much much more in the passing game.  Whether that works out well or is much less the wisest thing to do remains to be seen.  

 

 

[Alphadawg7]

1 hour ago, PBF81 said:

Top draft profiling sites have him listed as eventually being an average starter.  IMO that's generous.  I do not see him even approaching success in the X-WR role.  

I disagree.  One, most “draft profile sites” are not run by real scouts and are mostly born out of fantasy football fans and research who made a job out of their passion.  Which is fine, but they aren’t the definitive source, don’t have anything close to the data, info, interviews, or even skills to really accurately break these guys down, otherwise they would be working in the NFL.
 

In the NFL scouts were split on him, but there were a lot of them who felt he was one of the most ready to contribute early, and a lot of that has to do with his high football IQ and how much a junkie he is for football, learning, and development.  Doesn't mean he doesn’t have things to work on to excel on the field, but that’s true for every rookie coming into the NFL, it’s more about do they do enough fundamentals correctly to where you can spend more time getting them ready for the NFL vs having to build the kid up first.  
 

And Coleman checks a lot of boxes for a lot of people.  Even Beane praised things like his footwork and understanding of the game as traits they saw in him and how he could come in and play the X this year.

 

Truth is…if you disagree with the Keon pick and doubt him then you can find all the confirmation bias on the internet you want for that.  If you think it’s a good pick and are excited for him, you can also find all the confirmation bias you want on the internet, because people were spilt on him.  
 

But…the thing that stands out for me is that MANY of the sites negative on him were NOT negative on him until after he ran his 40 at the combine.  What that tells me is that they aren’t grading him on all the data, they are letting the combine 40 paint a picture and tell a story where now they are fitting the narrative around that.  They aren’t factoring where he excelled or his much faster 40 at his pro day, etc.  

 

There were a lot of people who had him a lock for the first and ahead of guys like Thomas until his 40 time.  And it’s why Beane said “good” when he didn’t put this best 40 time at the combine because it would make it easier to get him. 

[Joe Mama]

Why does TBD continue to show 2023 schedule?

[Rocky Landing]

1 hour ago, PBF81 said:

 

With you here, but I'll add to it.  I'm not so much interested in the competition among the WRs.  It seems pretty clear that the two leading receivers on this team should be and likely will be Shakir and Kincaid.  If we weren't forcing ourselves into this "complimentary football" model it shouldn't be unreasonable to expect Shakir to post well over 1,000 receiving yards and 8+ TDs.  I'd anticipate receiving yards in the order of Shakir, kincaid, Samuel, Cook and then who knows.  Coleman is not NFL ready despite narratives.  Top draft profiling sites have him listed as eventually being an average starter.  IMO that's generous.  I do not see him even approaching success in the X-WR role.  

 

For me it's more of what their plan is in the passing game.  It keeps changing from season to season and has once again changed, now purportedly being a short-medium game.  The curiosity for me is that this does not feed into Allen's strengths as a passer, it feeds more into a game-managing QB role.  

 

Some rhetorical questions: 

 

Will they allow Allen and provide for him to go deep as often as he likes to?   Certainly our WR roster isn't built for that.  Shakir is the only WR that has proven anything that is capable of going deep with much aplomb.  Coleman in the X-role begs questioning.  

 

They obviously want him to throw short-medium more, how will he be in that role given that if he has a weakness, that's it.  Last season his completion % and rating plummeted from 70.3% and 96.6 to 60.7% and 85.5 going from Dorsey to Brady.  That's a 10% drop in compl.% and 15 point drop in rating, which is enormous.  It's over a third-way down drop in rating ranking and from first to DFL in compl.% ranking.  His passing scoring production was cut by 26%.  He averaged a mere 1 passing TD in his last five games.  

 

What will impact the passing game is their plans for running the ball.  Cook petered out last season averaging a bottom-dwelling 3.6 YPC under Brady not including that Dallas game.  Even with the Dallas game he averaged 4.3 under Brady, very average, and a drop from 5.1 under Dorsey.  Is the plan to use Davis in a big role?  How is that different than when we had Singletary and Moss, both of which came into the league with greater draft potential than Davis.  

 

It seems that this team is going to continue to try to play '90s football despite our core talent being capable of much much more in the passing game.  Whether that works out well or is much less the wisest thing to do remains to be seen.  

 

 

I suspect that when the 53-man roster is finally built, that there is going to be a broad range of types of receivers. A lot of hay has been made about these big-bodied receivers that are all competing for spots, and for good reason. But, opposing defenses are going to have to defend the whole field. That's what I think they're really going for this season.

 

I think you're wrong about Coleman. That designation of "eventually being an average starter" may even be true, but it's a vague, and useless talking point. And it doesn't negate his strengths, or what his usefulness might be in a Josh Allen led offense. He has exceptional ball tracking, and his 40-time notwithstanding, he had the fastest gauntlet speed in the combine. However he pans out as a WR, he will stretch the field. (So will MVS/Claypool/Shorter/Shavers-- whomever gets a roster spot, their deficiencies notwithstanding...)

 

I actually think Allen's biggest strength in passing are the intermediate throws from 10 to 20 yards beyond the LOS, or 30-35 air yards. He consistently delivers those on a rope. That's ideal for the big guys we're going to have receiving the ball, as well. But, I'm expecting a much broader spread than that. Receiving ability is a requisite on this team. On any given play, there will be five legit receiving options on the field-- even in Jumbo packages. 

 

I also don't put much stock in Allen's (or Cook's) lower numbers after Brady took over. a) It's not a large enough sample size to be close to definitive. (And 96.6 to 85.5 really doesn't constitute a "plummet.") b) Those numbers are far less important than the win percentages. Dorsey= 0.500, Brady= 0.857.

 

I know this all sounds overly optimistic, and I fully admit to being that type of fan. I'm a homer, to be sure. But, I try to be realistic, as well. Not having an elite receiver like Diggs on the field is going to matter. Even as his production fell off at the end of the season, he was still drawing coverage. DCs were still game-planning him. Where my optimism comes from for 2024 is the notion that even with the loss of an elite WR in Diggs, the sum total of all the parts in the WR room could very well exceed that of 2023. That's not an expectation, but I think it's a reasonable hope.

 

GO BILLS!

[skibum]

Hard not to put WR at the top, but this being more of a 'transition' year will feature a lot of great position battles in pretty much every group.