Kaiir Elam traded to Cowboys

[Chuck Schick]

10 hours ago, ShakAttack said:

It's hard to look at this as a great success just because we got a 5th round pick for him.

 

It seems too easily forgotten that before getting the 5th, we spent a 1st to get him.

 

 

 

Huh?  We’ve been gnashing teeth for 4 years about that 1st round pick!

[Chicken Boo]

2 hours ago, Chandler#81 said:

It is when we got ANYTHING for Elam. He never was a fit in our Defense and never played a play on STs. 
I get it though. Your day isn’t complete without bashing your 5peat Division Champs or their mgmnt. It’s what you do and what you bring. 🤦‍♂️

 

The truth hurts.  I know.  

10 hours ago, The Wiz said:

A 1st round pick that amounted to 12 starts over 3 years with 2 INTs and 6 pass break ups.

 

 

How much did we get for Maybin???  Oh right, we waived him.

 

 

So now we're happy about 1st round failures.  Got it.

[NoName]

I wouldn't be surprised if Elam went on to become a solid player.

[Chuck Schick]

21 minutes ago, NoName said:

I wouldn't be surprised if Elam went on to become a solid player.

Really? I mean he COULD be ok I suppose but I think just about everyone involved are assuming the opposite. 

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

His fate was largely sealed in 2023 - they wanted to improve what they were getting with dane jackson, and instead of turning to elam they traded for douglas.  You really can't come back from that in the same organization.  I had him as a likely cut this season as did probably everyone else. 

 

Turning this situation into draft capital to use in 2025 is a bonus - i figured some late round pick in 2027 was best case scenario.  

Just now, Chuck Schick said:

Really? I mean he COULD be ok I suppose but I think just about everyone involved are assuming the opposite. 

 

Dallas is just going back to the scouting report they had on the player that they probably loved at draft time - and you see if there's anything there.  Pretty low-risk for them, so we'll see i guess.   

[SoMAn]

55 minutes ago, Chicken Boo said:

 

The truth hurts.  I know.  

 

So now we're happy about 1st round failures.  Got it.

Realistically, we may be wise to look at the big picture.

Suppose Elam turned into a pretty good CB and our round 6 pick spent most of his time inactive or on the practice square. We'd be in exactly the same position we are now and few people would be complaining about the round 6 CB not securing a starting role. We got lucky and the Bills were able to get a good starting corner, even though it wasn't the player that was taken late in round 1.

You win some, you lose some. I don't know if it's our expectations or just luck, but Beane seems to have more success in mid rounds than he does in the first.

Any time a GM is questioned about the process of drafting and bringing in young talent, they all have the same view; there's almost no player that is a 'sure thing', even though statistically there's a better chance of a top 10 pick being a starter. Go back and look at the first round picks over the past several years. I'll bet about a third never see a second contract with the team that drafted them. 

[Beck Water]

18 hours ago, HappyDays said:

I would have given him away for free honestly. Getting rid of his cap space is a win on its own.

 

For a former 1st round pick, a 5th and 6th round pick swap is pretty much free.

[Augie]

15 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

 

For a former 1st round pick, a 5th and 6th round pick swap is pretty much free.

 

I think I read we saved about $2.7 Mil on the cap, which is pretty much what we get out of this, I guess. Better than nothing. I hate blowing a 1st rounder as much as anyone, but it happens across the league. 

[Shaw66]

I haven't read this thread, at least not very much.  

 

From the standpoint of March 2025, this was a good deal for the Bills.  Elam was going nowhere in the organization, and getting anything for him rather than having him occupy a roster spot is a good thing.  (And as an aside, Jerry Jones might be the only GM in the league who would be willing to pay anything for Elam.)

 

From the standpoint of Elam as a first-round draft pick, he's about as big a busted pick as is possible.  My view is that a late-first round pick needs to be a starter by his second season.  It may very from position to position (a first-round running back has to be getting a lot of touches as a rookie or he's probably a mistake), but at most positions, if the guy isn't starting by his second season, something is wrong. Elam essentially never sniffed starting, unless he was more or less the only choice. 

 

He's been discussed before.  A guy with cover skills who hadn't shown a lot of the DB skills that McDermott values - playing complex defenses, including a variety of zone schemes, and an effective and aggressive tackler in the running game. It is unquestionable that Beane and his staff knew these things about him, because all of the public scouting reports at the time said exactly that. I'm assuming the Bills interviewed him before the draft, and they probably interviewed some of his coaches, and somehow they believed the Elam just needed to be taught and coached. They made a colossally bad judgment of who Elam is and what he could become.  

 

I like Beane, and my gut says he does a good job.  But my own keys to whether the GM is a keeper focus on three things:  1. Did they hire the right coach? 2. Did they find the right QB?  3. Did they get starters with their first- and second-round picks?  Beane never was tested on 1., got 2. right, and has underperformed on 3.  Obviously, Elam lowers his grade on the third point, big-time (but it's sort of offset by the Josh-Allen homerun).  Rousseau's a solid starter, Kincaid has underperformed, Oliver is a solid starter, Coleman's too early to tell.  Beyond those three major categories, he seems to do a good job in the later rounds.  Cook and Torrence are nice second-round gets, and Beane's done nicely in the mid- and late-rounds. 

 

How big a mistake was Elam?  Well, just imagine what could have been done instead drafting Elam. Take the picks they used to get him, and trade them for a first round pick in the draft the following year.  The Bills would have had two first-round picks - maybe they could have packaged them to move up.  Maybe they could have gotten another quality starter.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.  First-round picks are opportunities, and Elam was complete missed opportunity. 

 

In free agency, Beane has made few major moves except for Miller, but as he's often said, free-agency is for filling holes, not for bringing in talent. Talent comes in the draft.  And one reason the Bills seem to have little cap room every year is that, consistent with their philosophy, they spend their money to keep their talent, not to acquire new talent.  

 

How the Bills do in 2025 will depend a lot on Beane.  In particular, the Bills could be much better than 2024 if Kincaid, Coleman, and Bishop become valuable and effective starters, which none of them were in 2024.  If Bishop is who they hoped, he'll anchor the pass defense with Rapp or Forrest. If Bosa is who we hope, a consistent pass rushing edge, the Bills can make the rest of the defense work.  And if Beane can add a solid starter, somewhere, anywhere in the lineup, with the 2025 first round pick, the Bills will be loaded.  (Yeah, yeah, there's still Benford and Cook, but there'll be solutions.  I think the Bills keep both.)

 

Bottom line on Elam and Beane: A blown first-round pick really is a black mark on any GM's resume, and it's a black mark on Beane's.  But everyone makes mistakes; Elam was one of his biggest.  

[Don Otreply]

1 hour ago, Chicken Boo said:

 

The truth hurts.  I know.  

 

So now we're happy about 1st round failures.  Got it.

 come on now man, you can do better than such nonsense. 

[Logic]

4 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

 

Bottom line on Elam and Beane: A blown first-round pick really is a black mark on any GM's resume, and it's a black mark on Beane's.  But everyone makes mistakes; Elam was one of his biggest.  

Thanks, Shaw.

I share your view that Beane's record in the 1st and 2nd rounds hasn't been very good. On the other hand, in the mid to late rounds, it HAS been very good. Better than average, I'd say. Christian Benford, Terrel Bernard, Khalil Shakir, Spencer Brown -- some very good players taken in round three or later.

 

I agree that the Elam miss was enormous. HOWEVER...I'd suggest it's probably the only outright bust the Bills have drafted in round one under Brandon Beane. Some other players like Tremaine Edmunds haven't seen second contracts here, but they're still in the league and still producing at some level. Elam stands out as probably the darkest spot on Beane's draft resume.

 

That said, if we're going to ding him for missing in Elam, it's only fair to also give him credit for hitting on Christian Benford in round six. The Bills needed to find a good corner in that draft, and they did. Just not in the 1st round like everyone imagined it would be. I don't think it's easy to find a player in the 6th round who is as good as Benford, a guy who has arguably become one of the top ten corners in the league. So yes, we should hold Beane accountable for his early misses, but we should also celebrate his mid to late hits.

Re-signing, re-structuring, and handling the financial aspects of the team is also an important aspect of GMing, and on that front, I'd list Beane as better than most. He routinely gets ahead of the market, signs players to team friendly deals, and rarely lets his best players walk out of the building or get into ugly, public contract standoffs. 

Lastly, he has overseen the construction of a roster that has the 2nd most wins in the league since 2020, has won six straight division titles, and is a championship contender every single year. I'd argue that if not for some McDermott coaching blunders and if not for the HOF Mahomes/Reid duo, he'd have collected one or two Lombardis by now.

All in all, I share your view that Beane needs to step up his game in rounds one and two, and Kaiir Elam is a glaring example of that. But his great work in the mid to late rounds of the draft, excellent work with contracts and player retention, and the consistent winning nature of the team he oversees all point to a very good GM.

[The Wiz]

1 hour ago, Chicken Boo said:

So now we're happy about 1st round failures.  Got it.

Apparently reading comprehension isn't your strong suit.

 

The bills were able to get draft capital and clear 2.5m from their salary cap this year vs carrying a player that didn't work out in their system for 4.6m and then likely would have let him go at the end of the season anyways.

 

The fact that he was a bust for the Bills was never even mentioned in my previous comment but you do you.

 

 

[ChronicAndKnuckles]

10 hours ago, gonzo1105 said:

While I respect Joe and his work, his opinion is just that and shouldn’t be taken as a given that Bills fans have to listen to at his every whim. I have said since he was drafted that Elam was gonna bust and there hasn’t been one moment that has even remotely made me question that opinion 

Dude is more wrong than he is right 

[Sweats]

I still remember when this dude was drafted........to me, it was a panic pick, and we had no business drafting a square peg to fit a round hole.

 

Although it may go down as a forever failed Beane pick, at least we got something for him and maybe he'll be a better fit for the Boys

 

[Beck Water]

23 minutes ago, SoMAn said:

Realistically, we may be wise to look at the big picture.

Suppose Elam turned into a pretty good CB and our round 6 pick spent most of his time inactive or on the practice square. We'd be in exactly the same position we are now and few people would be complaining about the round 6 CB not securing a starting role. We got lucky and the Bills were able to get a good starting corner, even though it wasn't the player that was taken late in round 1.

You win some, you lose some. I don't know if it's our expectations or just luck, but Beane seems to have more success in mid rounds than he does in the first.

Any time a GM is questioned about the process of drafting and bringing in young talent, they all have the same view; there's almost no player that is a 'sure thing', even though statistically there's a better chance of a top 10 pick being a starter. Go back and look at the first round picks over the past several years. I'll bet about a third never see a second contract with the team that drafted them. 

 

This is something I've looked at some.  Yeah, the odds are best in the top-10 picks of the 1st round.   

"Get a 2nd contract from the team that drafted them" may not be the best criteria - lots of reasons for that.  Look at Baker Mayfield, the guy can arguably play football, but coaching changes and the team's decision to back up the Brinks truck for a "sick *****" got him slung out of Cleveland

 

Using a pretty permissive value of wAV from pro-football-reference, in the 1st round overall between 2016 and 2021, ~1/3 of the guys drafted in the first round, just didn't establish themselves as decent, starting-quality football players over the long term.  One could argue about the details (should guys like Wentz and Trubisky and Edwards Helaire who had 1-2 decent seasons count as 'decent football players', or not?) but the overall conclusion is the same.

 

 

[Beck Water]

1 hour ago, Shaw66 said:

I haven't read this thread, at least not very much.  

 

From the standpoint of March 2025, this was a good deal for the Bills.  Elam was going nowhere in the organization, and getting anything for him rather than having him occupy a roster spot is a good thing.  (And as an aside, Jerry Jones might be the only GM in the league who would be willing to pay anything for Elam.)

 

From the standpoint of Elam as a first-round draft pick, he's about as big a busted pick as is possible.  My view is that a late-first round pick needs to be a starter by his second season.  It may very from position to position (a first-round running back has to be getting a lot of touches as a rookie or he's probably a mistake), but at most positions, if the guy isn't starting by his second season, something is wrong. Elam essentially never sniffed starting, unless he was more or less the only choice. 

 

He's been discussed before.  A guy with cover skills who hadn't shown a lot of the DB skills that McDermott values - playing complex defenses, including a variety of zone schemes, and an effective and aggressive tackler in the running game. It is unquestionable that Beane and his staff knew these things about him, because all of the public scouting reports at the time said exactly that. I'm assuming the Bills interviewed him before the draft, and they probably interviewed some of his coaches, and somehow they believed the Elam just needed to be taught and coached. They made a colossally bad judgment of who Elam is and what he could become.  

 

I like Beane, and my gut says he does a good job.  But my own keys to whether the GM is a keeper focus on three things:  1. Did they hire the right coach? 2. Did they find the right QB?  3. Did they get starters with their first- and second-round picks?  Beane never was tested on 1., got 2. right, and has underperformed on 3.  Obviously, Elam lowers his grade on the third point, big-time (but it's sort of offset by the Josh-Allen homerun).  Rousseau's a solid starter, Kincaid has underperformed, Oliver is a solid starter, Coleman's too early to tell.  Beyond those three major categories, he seems to do a good job in the later rounds.  Cook and Torrence are nice second-round gets, and Beane's done nicely in the mid- and late-rounds. 

 

How big a mistake was Elam?  Well, just imagine what could have been done instead drafting Elam. Take the picks they used to get him, and trade them for a first round pick in the draft the following year.  The Bills would have had two first-round picks - maybe they could have packaged them to move up.  Maybe they could have gotten another quality starter.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.  First-round picks are opportunities, and Elam was complete missed opportunity. 

 

In free agency, Beane has made few major moves except for Miller, but as he's often said, free-agency is for filling holes, not for bringing in talent. Talent comes in the draft.  And one reason the Bills seem to have little cap room every year is that, consistent with their philosophy, they spend their money to keep their talent, not to acquire new talent.  

 

How the Bills do in 2025 will depend a lot on Beane.  In particular, the Bills could be much better than 2024 if Kincaid, Coleman, and Bishop become valuable and effective starters, which none of them were in 2024.  If Bishop is who they hoped, he'll anchor the pass defense with Rapp or Forrest. If Bosa is who we hope, a consistent pass rushing edge, the Bills can make the rest of the defense work.  And if Beane can add a solid starter, somewhere, anywhere in the lineup, with the 2025 first round pick, the Bills will be loaded.  (Yeah, yeah, there's still Benford and Cook, but there'll be solutions.  I think the Bills keep both.)

 

Bottom line on Elam and Beane: A blown first-round pick really is a black mark on any GM's resume, and it's a black mark on Beane's.  But everyone makes mistakes; Elam was one of his biggest.  

 

Shaw, you make some good points, and certainly "find the QB" is Job #1 for a good GM.

 

As far as 1st and 2nd round draft picks, there are a couple of things to consider.  In another post, I put up that going by pro-football-ref wAV and using a rather permissive cutoff, roughly 1/3 of the 1st round draft picks from 2016 to 2021 were 'busts' - not decent, starting quality football players.  (whether wAV is a good criteria or not can be debated, but as an objective metric, I'd say it's as decent as any).  The probability is strikingly different at the top of the 1st round, and strikingly lower towards the bottom of the 1st round.

 

The Bills have been drafting near the bottom of the 1st round since 2020, when, btw, they swung for the fences by sending their 1st round pick to Minn for Diggs - not a FA, but not consistent with the "talent comes in the draft" strategy.   How do teams cope with that?  This is kind of a trick question, but if you look at the 1st round picks of other teams who have had sustained success, what is their GM's record with 1st round picks?   Pick 2 or 3 teams.

My perception is that Beane's strategy to cope with drafting consistently at the bottom of the 1st, has been to "swing for the fences" by choosing high-ceiling, low-floor players.  That means sometimes choosing guys who are rated as having the physical talent to succeed in the NFL, but are missing something on their resume - they came from a smaller school and played against lower competition OR they just didn't have a lot of playing experience OR there are questions about how the scheme they played in would translate to the NFL.   They fell to the bottom of the 1st because there's a legit questionmark about their ability to transition to the NFL.   Rousseau certainly falls into that category - he simply hadn't played a lot of games at the point where the Bills drafted him.  He seems to be a good player now, but despite starting 17 games his rookie season, it took him a minute.

Edited 16 hours ago by Beck Water

[Lafromboise]

21 minutes ago, Sweats said:

I still remember when this dude was drafted........to me, it was a panic pick, and we had no business drafting a square peg to fit a round hole.

 

Although it may go down as a forever failed Beane pick, at least we got something for him and maybe he'll be a better fit for the Boys

 

Rumor was beane wanted McDuffie. And your right they absolutely panicked. I remember how red brandons face was following an interview about the pick

[Shaw66]

54 minutes ago, Logic said:

Thanks, Shaw.

I share your view that Beane's record in the 1st and 2nd rounds hasn't been very good. On the other hand, in the mid to late rounds, it HAS been very good. Better than average, I'd say. Christian Benford, Terrel Bernard, Khalil Shakir, Spencer Brown -- some very good players taken in round three or later.

 

I agree that the Elam miss was enormous. HOWEVER...I'd suggest it's probably the only outright bust the Bills have drafted in round one under Brandon Beane. Some other players like Tremaine Edmunds haven't seen second contracts here, but they're still in the league and still producing at some level. Elam stands out as probably the darkest spot on Beane's draft resume.

 

That said, if we're going to ding him for missing in Elam, it's only fair to also give him credit for hitting on Christian Benford in round six. The Bills needed to find a good corner in that draft, and they did. Just not in the 1st round like everyone imagined it would be. I don't think it's easy to find a player in the 6th round who is as good as Benford, a guy who has arguably become one of the top ten corners in the league. So yes, we should hold Beane accountable for his early misses, but we should also celebrate his mid to late hits.

Re-signing, re-structuring, and handling the financial aspects of the team is also an important aspect of GMing, and on that front, I'd list Beane as better than most. He routinely gets ahead of the market, signs players to team friendly deals, and rarely lets his best players walk out of the building or get into ugly, public contract standoffs. 

Lastly, he has overseen the construction of a roster that has the 2nd most wins in the league since 2020, has won six straight division titles, and is a championship contender every single year. I'd argue that if not for some McDermott coaching blunders and if not for the HOF Mahomes/Reid duo, he'd have collected one or two Lombardis by now.

All in all, I share your view that Beane needs to step up his game in rounds one and two, and Kaiir Elam is a glaring example of that. But his great work in the mid to late rounds of the draft, excellent work with contracts and player retention, and the consistent winning nature of the team he oversees all point to a very good GM.

Quoting you only to say I agree completely with this.  I like his mid- to late-round work and what he does in free agency.  I think this free-agency period is a good example.  Nice, solid work. 

 

Cap management also has been solid.  Some argued that the major cuts in his second year, the cuts that put the Bills in serious cap-hell, weren't necessary, but at least there was some logic to what he did that season, and what he did since that restart has been excellent.  

 

And one final point - his roster-building has to be considered in light of his desire to give McDermott the kind of players McDermott wants.  Beane's done that exceptionally well (except for Elam).

[TheBeaneBandit]

38 minutes ago, Sweats said:

I still remember when this dude was drafted........to me, it was a panic pick, and we had no business drafting a square peg to fit a round hole.

 

Although it may go down as a forever failed Beane pick, at least we got something for him and maybe he'll be a better fit for the Boys

 

I'm hoping this was a don't do that again lesson and another reason I'm advocating so strong for one final free agent in Samuel. I don't wanna be forced to go CB in round 1 as I don't feel value lines up to our draft position. I think a DE or DT could slide that could really help us now and especially in the future. All CB who I expect to be available there seem like mid round 2 type prospects.

Edited 16 hours ago by TheBeaneBandit

[Buffalosouth]

I've heard of him