Brandon Beane’s Tenure by Letter Grade—Poll is Up!

[NoSaint]

Just now, NoHuddleKelly12 said:

“A” should stand apart on a pedestal imho. No participation trophies 🏆 here! 😀

“Is he AMAZING or mediocre, or bad or awful?”

 

josh alone gives him a 10 yard head start but he still finishes the remaining 30 in about 4.5, right? He’s had some material challenges but absolutely crushed his career defining decision 

[BillsFanForever19]

2 hours ago, Einstein's Dog said:

Most of what you are bringing up is just showing either a disregard or misstep on the WR room.  For me, I wanted a WR instead of the Elam pick (Watkins/Pickens).  The next year really pleased with the Kincaid pick but was hoping for a DHop pick up.  Those were moves that could have helped bolster the weapons before this season.  Beane knew the Bills weren't extending G Davis, there should have been some succession planning.

 

Beane made the decision to unload Diggs.  Currently a disgruntled Diggs looks better than any WR we have.  It comes off now as looking like Beane went to Diggs to take a pay cut.  Diggs refused with "Ready for watever"  and "Well...." coming to mind.  Beane looked pretty smart playing hard ball with Von and Knox, coming away with concessions.  Not so good with the Diggs situation.  I thought Beane would have had a backup plan.

 

Even with everything that happened with Diggs, Beane could have double dipped in the draft, a second (Coleman) and late 3rd (Franklin), coupled with  OBJ things would seem a lot better.

 

From the sounds of Beane's presser and the timing of the trade, keeping Diggs wasn't really an option. He refused to answer whether or not Diggs had demanded a trade, which really says all that needs to be said there. The trade happened hours after Diggs made a "you sure about that?" tweet in reply to someone saying Allen would be fine without Diggs.

 

It was an untenable situation. He had already started giving up on the team last season - voluntarily taking himself off the field on important 3rd downs and dropping passes he normally wouldn't, showing mental lapses. Keeping him against his will this year would have just provided more problems and probably even less quality of play.

 

As for Troy Franklin - the guy fell to Pick 102 of Round 4 for a reason. If he were truly the player that you and a lot of people think he is, he wouldn't have lasted that long. He had already replaced Harty with Samuel and Sherfield with Hollins. Leaving 1 spot needing to be filled from last season. He viewed MVS as someone he could count on more in Year 1 than Franklin.

 

As for OBJ over MVS - OBJ turns 32 years old this year. He has a *terrible* injury history and hasn't had so much as a 600 yard season since 2019. Even with all of those concerns, it's very possible and something I could easily see that OBJ would rather go to South Beach than Buffalo. From a locale standpoint and a tax standpoint. We can't force someone to sign here. And we may have been in on him and he simply wanted to go to Miami.

 

Or he simply preferred MVS over OBJ. We'll never know. We shall see if the guys he chose work or you're right that it's not enough. But we weren't in the position this season to go apesh-t like you expected. And I'm not ready to say an offense with Allen at QB, Cook at RB, Kincaid, Coleman, Samuel, and Shakir as the top 4 passing options is the disgusting, awful, inexcusable failure you like to paint it as. Especially when you take into account where we were cap wise and roster wise before FA started.

 

There's a lot of potential there. And with what we have going out in terms of production down the stretch from Diggs, Davis, Harty, and Sherfield - I can't imagine it could be much worse.

Edited June 14 by BillsFanForever19

[NoHuddleKelly12]

44 minutes ago, NoSaint said:

“Is he AMAZING or mediocre, or bad or awful?”

 

josh alone gives him a 10 yard head start but he still finishes the remaining 30 in about 4.5, right? He’s had some material challenges but absolutely crushed his career defining decision 

Have said it before and will say it again—nail the draft for a franchise altering QB, and you become a “made” man as GM. But clearly he’s done more than that—the type of depth the Bills can routinely field has been pretty impressive imho. 

[GASabresIUFan]

B+/A- He has built a consistent winning team.  He has drafted well at points and better recently. He has also consistently found gems late in the draft.  He has added quality bargain FAs.  Has missed on some bigger ticket players (see Miller), but at least the swing for Miller was done for the right reasons.  He has also made a few lousy contracts like Miller and Knox.  His trades have mostly worked such as Douglas and Diggs.

 

I am also impressed with his ability to retool and create a youth movement for the Bills while fixing the cap issues (he created) on the fly.  I also like his commitment to finally developing our own top end skill players with the additions of Cook, Kincaid and Coleman.  

 

The only real criticism of the Beane era is that we haven't reached the Super Bowl, much less win one.   Had we made a Super Bowl, I'd give him an easy A.

[Alphadawg7]

10 hours ago, HappyDays said:

Beane frustrates me because he's an elite executive and seemingly isn't just shooting from the hip. I think he makes every move with a clear plan in mind. But he has just refused to really build around the franchise's greatest asset. That is such an important function of his job that failing to do it almost wipes out all of the good that he's done.

This is just not true through.  You may feel that way, but it’s factually wrong.  
 

In the last 5 drafts, Beane has used our first round pick in a weapon for Josh THREE times.  
 

In the last 3 drafts he has used 4 of our first 6 picks on help for Josh - Cook, Kincaid, O’Cyrus, Keon of which all that have played have looked like great picks.  
 

Not to mention using picks on guys like Brown, Shakir, etc as in these past 3 years that are now looking like great picks to go along with more guys we added this year that are promising at Center and RB.  
 

None of this factors in the FA moves he’s made.  He went out and got guys like Cole who was the best slot WR in the league while here, quality vets like John Brown and Sanders and drafted Davis, who for all his faults still put up solid stats here and exceeded his draft value.  
 

The reality is that the group around Allen is young because Diggs was traded probably a year or too sooner than was planned 2 years ago or even last year.  But just because that’s the case doesn’t rewrite history into a falsehood that Beane hasn’t been spending premium assets to get Josh more help.  
 

And quite frankly, there aren’t a lot of teams who have 4 players who have played 2 years or leas as promising as Kincaid, Keon, Shakir, and Cook is.  Most teams wish they had a young nucleus like this.

 

And while this team lacks a proven elite go to target, it makes up for right now with quality of depth.  And the best part is that if this group proves to be lacking, Beane has a bunch of extra premium picks and a ton of cap room next year to make moves to go get even more help.  

Edited June 14 by Alphadawg7

[GunnerBill]

8 hours ago, MarlinTheMagician said:

Fairly or not I credit him with Dawkins and Milano as well.  I consider them elite.  There are some pretty big names left off your list too - Torrence, Kincaid, Benford and Bernard to name 4.  I think our team would be MUCH less without those four players.  I think they are all "potentially elite" and difference makers right now.

 

You credit him with guys he didn't select? Interesting approach. As for leaving guys off... I didn't leave anyone off. I was asking who is his 4th most successful pick and I think too early to say it is any of those four.

8 hours ago, NoHuddleKelly12 said:

@GunnerBill, here is a quote from Ryan Talbot stating, “Doug Whaley played a big role in two coaching hires that ultimately failed.”

https://www.newyorkupstate.com/buffalo-bills/2017/04/buffalo_bills_best_and_worst_moves_during_the_doug_whaley_era.html

 
I have no inside information of course, and it’s also very possible that Talbot was misinformed…but I wanted to at least let you know that I normally don’t spout off without a reference or 2 to fall back on for it. Again, Talbot’s article doesn’t quote an independent source so take it for what it’s worth. 🙂

 

He was on the recruitment teams, but "played a big role" well it depends how you quantify a big role. Buddy and Russ made the call on Marrone and Whaley's recommendation in 2015 was to hire Hue Jackson. Now that would likely have failed too. But that was what happened.

[Doc Brown]

29 minutes ago, Alphadawg7 said:

This is just not true through.  You may feel that way, but it’s factually wrong.  
 

In the last 5 drafts, Beane has used our first round pick in a weapon for Josh THREE times.  
 

In the last 3 drafts he has used 4 of our first 6 picks on help for Josh - Cook, Kincaid, O’Cyrus, Keon of which all that have played have looked like great picks.  

My main criticism is him as far as helping Josh is not signing D. Hop last off-season when he could've made it work salary cap wise.  He sure would've been an upgrade from Davis, Sherfield, and Hardy.

[GunnerBill]

12 hours ago, Alphadawg7 said:

OL I would give a solid B in FA.

 

WR - IMO you didn’t grade him on who he took, but on volume and I don’t think that is a correct way to grade his drafting.  He hit on 2 day 3 picks with starters, just because we had guys like Diggs, Cole, Brown, Sanders in FA is why we didn’t spend more draft capital there.   I would give him a B as he has done well when he’s drafted the position.

 

DL - I think you’re being a little harsh on DL, but I’m not too far off.  I’d give him a B on drafting as he’s gotten good returns on all his main picks but one, which he still traded to recoup a little value back.  I think I would lean more C or C- on FA.

 

Corner - I think you are over weighing one pick and whose story still isn’t finished in Elam.  Beane has had a very good track record of finding value at the corner position.  This is a B for me as I’m not going to kill him on Elam until I see how Elam does this camp and preseason.  And he is off to a good start, but also it’s early.  And the Rasul acquisition and retaining him this year I think elevates his FA a B as well.  
 

Safety - Again, I find D harsh, he hasn’t had to go to FA to find anything but backups prior to this year.  To give him a D for a couple guys that backed up Poyer and Hyde feels harsh.  And we don’t yet know bow well they will play this year if either of them start (Hyde might also still come back and Bishop is competing to start).  

 

OL - The minus in the "B-" is for building, in his own words, a "horrible" offensive line in 2018 to protect his rookie Quarterback and the 2022 moves. I said it at the time - Saffold was always overrated and totally washed and Bates was a backup masquerading as a starter. IMO the offensive line was the biggest need on the roster going into that FA period and they went for two guys they were comfortable with (Bates as an incumbent and Saffold who Kromer knew) and it failed. I think they failed predictably. They did a much better job in 2023 with Cybo and McGovern but 2022 was a missed opportunity. 

 

WR - I did factor in his lack of investment at the position, yes. You may disagree but I think it is relevant. Only one team in football has spent less at the position in terms of draft capital in the years Beane has been here. When you have Josh Allen under centre that's a mistake IMO. 

 

On DL - the reason it is a D+ in free agency for me is it is the spot he has spent the most cap dollars since he has been here in terms of FA acquisitions and the production way underperforms expectation. 

 

On safety - maybe a D is harsh. But I start from the perspective of a C is neutral. Maybe it should be a D+. But trading a pick (I know only a 7th) for Dean Marlowe only to not use him remains mystifying to me that has to knock something off. 

[GunnerBill]

9 hours ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

He didn't hire the coaches.   

 

Whaley was not an executive who instilled confidence in those above him.  He was a road scout.

 

He repeatedly was allowed to be "involved" in the hiring process but his opinion carried little weight.   Ultimately Russ hired Marrone with little input from Whaley.   Marrone and he were never on the same page.   Russ also pushed the Pegula's to hire Rex.   Then lastly,  after Terry Pegula promised to let Whaley lead the search for Rex replacement.........Pegula picked McDermott when Whaley wanted to keep interviewing or hire Huge Action Jackson(according to reports).   Then McDermott told Pegula he wanted to bring Beane in and sh!t can Whaley altogether.   

 

The genius of Beane is that he could probably sell propane to Terry Pegula.   He is a confidence man.   The Pegula's desperately needed that because they had no confidence in their own football decisions.   Unlike their supreme confidence in Terry's hockey sense.   The results haven't been championship level but having the HC and GM on the same page and ownership trusting their vision goes a long way.   It makes them greater than the sum of their parts.

 

your timing is slightly out - he wanted to hire Jackson in the Rex round, not the McDermott round. But you are correct Whaley wanted to carry on interviewing in 2017. He was in the process of putting a slip in for Steelers DC Keith Butler when the Pegulas pulled the plug. They had a second meeting with McDermott and his wife on the Pegula yacht without Whaley in attendance where Kim was already running Mrs McDermott through school choices and districts look for a house in. Dougie still thought he was mid coaching hunt and Kim was already onto house hunting for the coach's wife!

 

I think on your second part the other thing they probably like about Beane is he is the first to own his mistakes. And Terry probably tired of people like Rex and the old Sabres GM (name escapes me, Whaley's buddy) always blaming everyone else. His sense of "look I got this wrong it's on me and I know how to fix it" probably resonates a little better than some of the other execs Pegula has had to listen to. 

9 hours ago, Einstein's Dog said:

Most of what you are bringing up is just showing either a disregard or misstep on the WR room.  For me, I wanted a WR instead of the Elam pick (Watkins/Pickens).  The next year really pleased with the Kincaid pick but was hoping for a DHop pick up.  Those were moves that could have helped bolster the weapons before this season.  Beane knew the Bills weren't extending G Davis, there should have been some succession planning.

 

Beane made the decision to unload Diggs.  Currently a disgruntled Diggs looks better than any WR we have.  It comes off now as looking like Beane went to Diggs to take a pay cut.  Diggs refused with "Ready for watever"  and "Well...." coming to mind.  Beane looked pretty smart playing hard ball with Von and Knox, coming away with concessions.  Not so good with the Diggs situation.  I thought Beane would have had a backup plan.

 

Even with everything that happened with Diggs, Beane could have double dipped in the draft, a second (Coleman) and late 3rd (Franklin), coupled with  OBJ things would seem a lot better.

 

I don't know for certain but I'd be shocked if Beane went to Diggs for a pay cut. I think their mind was made up they were moving on.

[Doc Brown]

8 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

WR - I did factor in his lack of investment at the position, yes. You may disagree but I think it is relevant. Only one team in football has spent less at the position in terms of draft capital in the years Beane has been here. When you have Josh Allen under centre that's a mistake IMO. 

Do you include a 1st and a 4th for Diggs in this equation?

[JohnNord]

12 hours ago, Chaos said:

If the Bills organization does not trust him with the head coaching decison, he can’t be considered a top GM, only a top player personnel manager.  The top GMs are given control over the organization.  

It likely wouldn’t make a difference.  He fully supports Sean McDermott.

[GunnerBill]

8 minutes ago, Doc Brown said:

Do you include a 1st and a 4th for Diggs in this equation?

 

Fair, no I didn't. I should have phrased more carefully because he did "spend" those picks. Not team has drafted at a lower cost in terms of draft value chart except the Buccaneers. 

[Einstein's Dog]

6 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

My main criticism is him as far as helping Josh is not signing D. Hop last off-season when he could've made it work salary cap wise.  He sure would've been an upgrade from Davis, Sherfield, and Hardy.

Seems like a missed move.  Not only would DHop have been a great fit in Dorsey's system - which had crushing blow after blow by G Davis- it would have been a great bridge for knowing they were moving on from G Davis the next year.  And it could have been Diggs insurance.

 

There could have been some downside though - Diggs may have quit earlier, thrown some type of diva hissy fit.  

[Freddie's Dead]

I give him a B.  Bills are a solid contender every year now.  His failure to build around Josh keeps this from an A grade.  Hopefully next year will get us the WR corps we need to win the SB.  All is forgiven if he can bring home the Lombardi.

[Einstein's Dog]

10 hours ago, BillsFanForever19 said:

 

From the sounds of Beane's presser and the timing of the trade, keeping Diggs wasn't really an option. He refused to answer whether or not Diggs had demanded a trade, which really says all that needs to be said there. The trade happened hours after Diggs made a "you sure about that?" tweet in reply to someone saying Allen would be fine without Diggs.

 

It was an untenable situation. He had already started giving up on the team last season - voluntarily taking himself off the field on important 3rd downs and dropping passes he normally wouldn't, showing mental lapses. Keeping him against his will this year would have just provided more problems and probably even less quality of play.

 

As for Troy Franklin - the guy fell to Pick 102 of Round 4 for a reason. If he were truly the player that you and a lot of people think he is, he wouldn't have lasted that long. He had already replaced Harty with Samuel and Sherfield with Hollins. Leaving 1 spot needing to be filled from last season. He viewed MVS as someone he could count on more in Year 1 than Franklin.

 

As for OBJ over MVS - OBJ turns 32 years old this year. He has a *terrible* injury history and hasn't had so much as a 600 yard season since 2019. Even with all of those concerns, it's very possible and something I could easily see that OBJ would rather go to South Beach than Buffalo. From a locale standpoint and a tax standpoint. We can't force someone to sign here. And we may have been in on him and he simply wanted to go to Miami.

 

Or he simply preferred MVS over OBJ. We'll never know. We shall see if the guys he chose work or you're right that it's not enough. But we weren't in the position this season to go apesh-t like you expected. And I'm not ready to say an offense with Allen at QB, Cook at RB, Kincaid, Coleman, Samuel, and Shakir as the top 4 passing options is the disgusting, awful, inexcusable failure you like to paint it as. Especially when you take into account where we were cap wise and roster wise before FA started.

 

There's a lot of potential there. And with what we have going out in terms of production down the stretch from Diggs, Davis, Harty, and Sherfield - I can't imagine it could be much worse.

I do think moving on from Diggs had to happen if they wanted to keep J Brady.  After the season I was kind of shocked to see Diggs didn't have an injury.  His actions (and play) towards the end of the season were a problem.  So, I can understand the move, I just don't like the replacement plan.

 

As for double dipping, anyone the Bills got in the 3rd-4th would have been passed by everyone else.  Of course.  K Coleman was pretty much passed by everyone else and Beane was so unafraid of him getting picked that he traded down twice.   Doesn't mean Coleman can't be good.  At the time I was rooting against the double dip and hoping Beane had bigger plans.  But now in retrospect I am wishing there was another 3rd-4th rounder to watch develop instead of plugging my nose and hoping Claypool or MVS can turn it around.

 

Actually I'm excited about the rest of the playmakers except for the outside WRs.  That makes it a little more frustrating.  We're so close to an overall explosive offense. 

[HappyDays]

7 hours ago, Alphadawg7 said:

This is just not true through.  You may feel that way, but it’s factually wrong.  
 

In the last 5 drafts, Beane has used our first round pick in a weapon for Josh THREE times.  
 

In the last 3 drafts he has used 4 of our first 6 picks on help for Josh - Cook, Kincaid, O’Cyrus, Keon of which all that have played have looked like great picks.  
 

Not to mention using picks on guys like Brown, Shakir, etc as in these past 3 years that are now looking like great picks to go along with more guys we added this year that are promising at Center and RB.  
 

None of this factors in the FA moves he’s made.  He went out and got guys like Cole who was the best slot WR in the league while here, quality vets like John Brown and Sanders and drafted Davis, who for all his faults still put up solid stats here and exceeded his draft value.  
 

The reality is that the group around Allen is young because Diggs was traded probably a year or too sooner than was planned 2 years ago or even last year.  But just because that’s the case doesn’t rewrite history into a falsehood that Beane hasn’t been spending premium assets to get Josh more help.  
 

And quite frankly, there aren’t a lot of teams who have 4 players who have played 2 years or leas as promising as Kincaid, Keon, Shakir, and Cook is.  Most teams wish they had a young nucleus like this.

 

And while this team lacks a proven elite go to target, it makes up for right now with quality of depth.  And the best part is that if this group proves to be lacking, Beane has a bunch of extra premium picks and a ton of cap room next year to make moves to go get even more help.  

 

So I mean really invest in the offense. Over invest if anything, even to the detriment of other areas on the team. In other words I wish he would treat our WR room like he's treated our DL. Multiple 1st and 2nd round picks, a blockbuster free agent signing, plus mid-tier free agency dollars spent every single offseason. I'm a big believer in building on top of your biggest strength. As long as Allen is here our biggest strength will be the passing offense. No way you can say Beane has made that the focus of his tenure here. He has made up some ground over the past two offseasons but it still does not come close to the level of investment I'm talking about.

 

In your analysis you don't account for what the team lost. We lost Diggs, Davis, Harty, and Sherfield this year. In their place we added Coleman, MVS, Samuel, and Hollins. Even if you want to be extremely charitable that is at best a clean swap of like for like. I don't consider that true investment. That is just the bare minimum of what needed to happen to field a competent passing offense.

[Alphadawg7]

55 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

So I mean really invest in the offense. Over invest if anything, even to the detriment of other areas on the team. In other words I wish he would treat our WR room like he's treated our DL. Multiple 1st and 2nd round picks, a blockbuster free agent signing, plus mid-tier free agency dollars spent every single offseason. I'm a big believer in building on top of your biggest strength. As long as Allen is here our biggest strength will be the passing offense. No way you can say Beane has made that the focus of his tenure here. He has made up some ground over the past two offseasons but it still does not come close to the level of investment I'm talking about.

 

In your analysis you don't account for what the team lost. We lost Diggs, Davis, Harty, and Sherfield this year. In their place we added Coleman, MVS, Samuel, and Hollins. Even if you want to be extremely charitable that is at best a clean swap of like for like. I don't consider that true investment. That is just the bare minimum of what needed to happen to field a competent passing offense.

I get your view, but again, based on Diggs extension and then restructure I think it’s clear the plan had not been to be replacing both Diggs and Davis this year.  So I think that expedited the transition to youth and the amount of change in one season when the team and Beane decided moving on from Diggs now and getting back a 2nd for this next year was what was best for the Bills right now.   
 

And then his is one season in which we were able to shed aging cap choking deals and players, it turned out to be an ideal season to do so given we are armed heavily next year in both draft capital and cap space to make what event big splash moves necessary to keep pushing this team forward.  
 

Plus, the list of Super Bowl winners don’t support your desire to over invest so heavily in receivers the way you described.  You win the post season in the trenches, KC wouldn’t have even reached the Super Bowl if not for Chris Jones, and then he went out and won the Super Bowl for them too.  And that is the same back to back SB team that has underwhelming weapons for 2 years.

 

I think Beanes bigger issue is he hasn’t found that difference maker that can get to Mahomes and over spent on Von (even though he was playing at a high level before getting hurt) because they felt he was a guy to get over the hump.  And it might of worked had he not gotten hurt, and that’s the risk with a 32 year old player your sign.  
 

2023 was a bit of bad luck…we win that KC game if we aren’t missing all our linebackers and then who knows what happens after that.  

Edited June 14 by Alphadawg7

[Einstein's Dog]

43 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

In your analysis you don't account for what the team lost. We lost Diggs, Davis, Harty, and Sherfield this year. In their place we added Coleman, MVS, Samuel, and Hollins. Even if you want to be extremely charitable that is at best a clean swap of like for like. I don't consider that true investment. That is just the bare minimum of what needed to happen to field a competent passing offense.

How can you even entertain the idea that it is a clean swap?  C'mon, I know you said "extremely charitable" but even that is too much.   There is no like for like in this year over year analysis.

 

The market value of what we had vs have:   Diggs $20M, G Davis $13M, Sherfield (Minn), and Harty (Balt).   Now have Samuel $8M, K Cole $2.5M and borderline types of MVS/Claypool (Sherfield/Harty equivalents). 

 

That's over $20M less of market value worth in WRs.  And RBs went from L Murray to 4th rounder.  And even TEs although the same Knox took a pay cut.

[Alphadawg7]

5 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

OL - The minus in the "B-" is for building, in his own words, a "horrible" offensive line in 2018 to protect his rookie Quarterback and the 2022 moves. I said it at the time - Saffold was always overrated and totally washed and Bates was a backup masquerading as a starter. IMO the offensive line was the biggest need on the roster going into that FA period and they went for two guys they were comfortable with (Bates as an incumbent and Saffold who Kromer knew) and it failed. I think they failed predictably. They did a much better job in 2023 with Cybo and McGovern but 2022 was a missed opportunity. 

 

2018 though, come on, we were in full cap shedding mode.  People give Beane way too much flack for the early years where it was much less about the rebuild and more about the tear down.  Beane wasn't rebuilding in 2018, he was 100% focused on cleaning up the cap, this isn't even a question as he stated that over and over again.  They were not looking to be big spenders.  Even guys like Saffold were short term stop gaps not long-term commitments while we were still building the roster.  Its not like quality OL just are readily available.  And keep in mind, FA's need to WANT to sign with us and then CHOOSE us (caps to emphasize not yell), and it wasn't until probably 2021 did the Bills start to become more attractive to FA's.  

 

5 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

WR - I did factor in his lack of investment at the position, yes. You may disagree but I think it is relevant. Only one team in football has spent less at the position in terms of draft capital in the years Beane has been here. When you have Josh Allen under centre that's a mistake IMO. 

 

Disagree...when you have Stefon Diggs in his prime you do not need to do this.  For 2 of Allens best 4 seasons he had a top 5 WR in Diggs (arguably top 3 for 2 of those) and the best slot WR in the NFL in Cole.  They still had plenty of other solid to good players as well.  They planned for Cole's departure by drafting Shakir and signing Crowder, who despite his injuries making his time here irrelevant, was a solid signing to hold the spot down until Shakir was ready.  Instead, the injuries forced McKenzie up the pecking order.  

 

Beane has used 3 of his 5 first picks on receiving weapons for Josh the past 5 years.  Show me another team that has used 3 of their last 5 picks on receivers in the NFL.   You can't disregard Kincaid, he was drafted to receiver the ball, not do TE things.  You comment that we have invested less is disingenuous IMHO because Beane also used FA to keep putting guys ready to play around Josh too...you want to say less because Beane hasn't used a bunch of day 2 or 3 picks on WR's, but he also didn't need to for the reasons I just stated.  And the ones he did, hit like Davis and Shakir based on their draft slots.

 

2 years ago, all the rage here and in the media was that Josh needs a RUN game when Daboll left, he can't be asked to do it all.  Diggs was Diggs, and Davis seemed ready to start full time after the offense played better with him taking snaps away from Sanders the 2nd half of 2021.  This notion that our receiving weapons were under invested was not much of a thing until after 2022 when Davis struggled to deliver on expectations even though his season totals were not that bad.  

 

And Beane immediately addressed that issue by both trying to trade up for a WR and getting rebuffed and instead finding a trade up for Kincaid. When Davis proved to be the question mark, Beane didn't hesitate at all to not only use our first rounder, but trade up as well.  

 

5 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

On DL - the reason it is a D+ in free agency for me is it is the spot he has spent the most cap dollars since he has been here in terms of FA acquisitions and the production way underperforms expectation. 

 

I don't disagree here so much, I just think the D+ is a but harsh because the more recent investments in the DL have been good ones in guys like Floyd and Daquan.

 

5 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

On safety - maybe a D is harsh. But I start from the perspective of a C is neutral. Maybe it should be a D+. But trading a pick (I know only a 7th) for Dean Marlowe only to not use him remains mystifying to me that has to knock something off. 

 

I mean that is a pretty small thing to ding him for, trading for some depth when we had some potential injury issues was no big deal.  They traded for him because it was in season, and he knew the defense.  What they gave up was pretty meaningless too.  The fact he was able top keep Hyde and Poyer her for the prime of their careers, even when it seemed like that wouldn't happen, should grossly outweigh this.  Not to mention, he got maybe the best S prospect in this years draft too.   

Edited June 14 by Alphadawg7

[HappyDays]

1 hour ago, Alphadawg7 said:

Plus, the list of Super Bowl winners don’t support your desire to over invest so heavily in receivers the way you described.  You win the post season in the trenches, KC wouldn’t have even reached the Super Bowl if not for Chris Jones, and then he went out and won the Super Bowl for them too.  And that is the same back to back SB team that has underwhelming weapons for 2 years.

 

As I've said before I'm not looking to perfectly model other Super Bowl winners. I'm looking to build the best team for the Buffalo Bills. For a myriad of reasons that I don't feel like getting into we are not going to copy the Chiefs formula. We've already tried the formula of over investing in the defense and it just isn't working. It's time to try a different direction and do everything possible to set up Josh Allen to steamroll opponents all the way to the Super Bowl.