Is there an NFL team with a weaker WR group than the Bills?

[GASabresIUFan]

Haven't we had this topic before?

 

Anyway we really won't know until we see how Palmer fits with Josh and in Brady's offense and well (or if) Coleman improves in year 2.  I'm also going to suggest that if Samuel stays healthy in camp, you could see much more production out of him in 2025.  

 

So is this the worst WR group in the NFL.  I'm not sure, but there is upside.  I still would have like to see Beane draft someone like Royals, Thornton, Felton, or Arian Smith.

[chris heff]

35 minutes ago, FireChans said:

The Bills defense was bad and contributed greatly to the loss. The Bills offense was also bad and contributed greatly to the loss lol.
 

If you don’t think only managing 10 points is very bad, then you’re just wrong. Categorically and definitively 

Oh I think 10 points is bad, but he was trying to put that game on the WRs, everyone was bad in that game.

[FireChans]

1 minute ago, chris heff said:

Oh I think 10 points is bad, but he was trying to put that game on the WRs, everyone was bad in that game.

 

2 hours ago, DapperCam said:

I would say the WR group definitely lost us the Texans game, and greatly contributed to us losing the regular season Ravens game after Shakir went out.

He said they contributed greatly to the loss.

 

He was correct.

[NickelCity]

Kaden Prather OROY 😏

[DCofNC]

The expectation of spending big draft capital on WR was silly.  It’s a weak class to start and deep in other positions of need.   
 

If you look at the contracts/investment the top 4 WRs are set.  Shakir, Palmer, Keon and Samuel.  The 5th/possible 6 is never seeing the field in an ideal world.   Like it or not, they have to let Coleman prove himself, Palmer is starting and Samuel is going to get a lot more looks, assuming he’s healthy AND they still have time to add someone or see who emerges in camp. 
 

[GASabresIUFan]

3 minutes ago, DCofNC said:

The expectation of spending big draft capital on WR was silly.  It’s a weak class to start and deep in other positions of need.   
 

If you look at the contracts/investment the top 4 WRs are set.  Shakir, Palmer, Keon and Samuel.  The 5th/possible 6 is never seeing the field in an ideal world.   Like it or not, they have to let Coleman prove himself, Palmer is starting and Samuel is going to get a lot more looks, assuming he’s healthy AND they still have time to add someone or see who emerges in camp. 
 

While most of this is true, the one area that we could have helped ourselves in the draft was a deep threat WR and there was plenty of those available to draft in the 4th rd.  In fact Beane & Co interviewed Thornton, Royals, Horton, and Smith as well as another 10 receivers leading up to the draft.  Getting Prather who has decent, but not great speed in the 7th round was a complete let down and in a need based draft, not adding one of the speed guys they interviewed seems like a missed opportunity.

[ganesh]

The 2024 Bills offense is the all-hime highest scoring offense in Bills history.  They will figure a way to get that done.  The issue was with a 20th ranked Defense...They have bolstered it through FA and the draft...Now time for the coaches ot get to work and put this puzzle together. 

[HappyDays]

7 hours ago, ProcessTruster said:

Bills play against zone a great deal, limiting the deep ball. 

So not sure a speed guy adds a lot.    

Once the league saw Josh take off and gash them against man (2019,2020) , they went zone.   

Not sure that will change much. 

Zone limits the value of a speed guy.  

Bills seem to have decided they need to play more man to enable rush to get there with only above average talent

In order to play man, you need guys like Max and Benford who can track every route on their own

Bills are tight on the cap , therefore need lots of top 150 draft picks to fill in when the D Jones of the world head out at year end

Therefore you don't trade up for a speed guy WR (bc they won't add much), you go get fast man-to-man corners and big D line rush guys

 

This really isn't that hard to understand.   

 

Defenses have gotten smaller over time to defend the pass .... and teams on now running on them.   Bills are no different.  

 

We all loved the go-go 2020 offense, but the league has largely took that away with cover 2 zone, so the fan base needs to let it go and move on.   In fact, defenses are now switching again to playing man against the Bills, so a seperator like Palmer is a great add.   

 

I am not disturbed much by the OP. 

 

 

 

 

 

You're a couple years behind with this post. The Bills have faced the most man in the NFL over the past two seasons. And last year it wasn't cover 2 that thwarted us, it was cover 1. Specifically against Baltimore and Houston our offense was awful and Beane made the desperate move to trade for Cooper as a result. I suspect we'll be talking about possibilities for a similar trade this October. Hopefully I'm wrong. For that to happen Coleman needs to develop, Samuel needs to be healthy and prove he hasn't lost a step, and Palmer needs to be a guy whose production matches his separation analytics. Like last year it is a lot of best case scenarios we're banking on for the room to be even average let alone top 10.

 

Edited 12 hours ago by HappyDays

[Orlando Buffalo]

10 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

Chargers, Patriots, Panthers, Cowboys, Raiders, Jets, Titans, Seahawks, and maybe 49ers depending on Aiyuk's recovery.  That's off the top of my head.

I would like more receiver talent but we are certainly not the worst and we are much better than the Pats, Titans, and both NY teams have one great receiver and then poor ones. 

[WideNine]

2 hours ago, Mikie2times said:

For those that want to know it, this is 2014-2016 for Carolina, then 2017 to current with Buffalo. What WR's Beane has drafted. I'm sure some will say he didn't have as much involvement in 2017 and he wasn't technically the assistant GM in Carolina until 2015. So if you want to exclude those years, Benjamin and Jones would be removed and the list would start with Coleman. I think it's more than a fair question at this point to wonder if we can draft and develop players at WR which seems to be our formula everywhere else.  

 

 

Well they did trade away a first for Diggs and for a few seasons that worked pretty well I think.

 

I expect they will invest again at some point in a vertical boundary receiver that can stress cover 0 (or cover 1 - Happy Days call out earlier in the thread).

 

Assume with defensive needs and a limited pool of speedsters with hands the board did not fall that way this year.

 

 

 

 

Edited 11 hours ago by WideNine

[HappyDays]

2 hours ago, Cray51 said:

And now we used this draft to build a foundation on the defense and people are mad that we addressed the largest weakness on the team

 

I don't think many fans disagree that rebuilding the defense should have been the main focus in this draft. It's just some of us wanted them to throw a bone to the offense too. Literally just use one decently high pick on a pass catcher. Is that so unfair? Trading up in the 4th when a couple vertical WRs were sitting there and instead taking yet another defensive lineman felt like total overkill to me.

 

Edited 12 hours ago by HappyDays

[Big Turk]

11 hours ago, Pete said:

Who is our outside WRs?  Where are they?  Did Keon play so good that we can count on him to be WR2?  Is Palmer WR 1?  Can we count on Samuels to be healthy the entire season?  Who is our 5th WR?
 

Palmer 1

Keon 2

Shakir slot

Samuels 

 

Buffalo saw more man to man coverage last season, because no one respects our WR.  We have had FA and the draft to correct that, and Beane has done Jack *****.

 

its going to take another Ravens curb stomping to make Beane panic and make another Amari like trade.

 

It’s the emperors new clothes.  We have yet to replace John Brown.  This offense needs a vertical component which it is sorely lacking.

 

I know Bills had great offense- after we acquired Amari.

 

We lose Mack and Amari, and added Palmer.  

 

Name a worse WR group.

 

What happens if there is a WR injury?  Is WR Beanes Achilles heal?

 

 

 

And we still scored 30+ points a game, tied the all-time NFL record for most consecutive 30+ points games and finished tied for 2nd all-time in the number of 30+ point games in a season.

 

 

[Pete]

2 minutes ago, Big Turk said:

 

And we still scored 30+ points a game, tied the all-time NFL record for most consecutive 30+ points games and finished tied for 2nd all-time in the number of 30+ point games in a season.

 

 

You are right.  We are so awesome on offense that we should not wish to improve and be more efficient.  Got it

[Doc Brown]

13 minutes ago, Orlando Buffalo said:

I would like more receiver talent but we are certainly not the worst and we are much better than the Pats, Titans, and both NY teams have one great receiver and then poor ones. 

Forgot about the Giants and the Browns.  We're pry in that 20 to 25 range.  

 

1 minute ago, HappyDays said:

 

I don't think many fans disagree that rebuilding the defense should have been the main focus in this draft. It's just some of us wanted them to throw a bone to the offense too. Literally just use one decently high pick on one. Is that so unfair? Trading up in the 4th when a couple vertical WRs were sitting there and instead taking yet another defensive lineman felt like total overkill to me.

Beane's always said that it starts up front so at least he consistently drafts that way for the most part.  I always have my doubts about 4th round or later WR burners because they rarely work out.  Once Golden was gone in the first I wanted nothing to do with WR the rest of the draft and just focus on defense.  I would've preferred bringing Quinton Morris back than taking a TE3 instead of say a S or LB in the 5th round.  Beane screwed the pooch by not trading for Metcalf so mentally I just assumed at that point we were going to run it back with what we had once the Steelers traded for him.  Maybe I should be more upset.  Lol.

[HappyDays]

1 hour ago, Cray51 said:

My guess, the team had substantially better grades on who they picked than the WR on the board.

 

Of course they did. But nothing about their past DL evaluations makes me blindly trust that their higher grade on Deone Walker is correct. Quite the opposite - I have almost zero faith in their ability to scout and properly use DL considering the vast amount of resources they've spent on the position for a comparatively meager return.

 

Funny enough they've actually gotten a quite good return on their WR draft pick investments. Diggs for a 1st was a home run, Davis was a good 4th rounder, Shakir has been an excellent 5th rounder, and TBD on Coleman although the way he ended the season was disappointing. On a pure investment to return ratio, that's gotta be among the best in the NFL. The issue is they invest in the position less than any other team.

[Big Turk]

14 minutes ago, Pete said:

You are right.  We are so awesome on offense that we should not wish to improve and be more efficient.  Got it

 

It's called diminishing returns. There is far more upside to be had on defense than on offense in terms of improvement.

Edited 12 hours ago by Big Turk

[Pete]

12 minutes ago, Big Turk said:

 

It's called diminishing returns. There is far more upside to be had on defense than on offense in terms of improvement.

Its called game winning drives. Not Dalton drops. Not bad calls.  Game Winning drives

Edited 11 hours ago by Pete

[AlCowlingsTaxiService]

50 minutes ago, Orlando Buffalo said:

I would like more receiver talent but we are certainly not the worst and we are much better than the Pats, Titans, and both NY teams have one great receiver and then poor ones. 

I’d gladly take that awful Darius Slatyon off the Giants hands 

[thenorthremembers]

8 hours ago, Kirby Jackson said:

Start is such a weird way to evaluate it on this “everybody eats” group. Last year, Hollins was behind Samuel, Coleman, Shakir and Cooper once he got here. I bet he played as many or more snaps than all receivers with the possible exception of Shakir. It’s a ROLE not a spot on the depth chart that the Bills missed on. They missed on a slew of sub 4.4 40 guys that could have done that. Now, they’ll try it with Prather who I don’t believe is the guy. 
 

Here is the list of guys after 30 that I believe could have done that: Burden, Noel, TeSlaa, Kyle Williams, Savion Williams, Tai Felton, *****, Thornton, Arian Smith, Lane, Royals, Watkins, Lambert-Smith, Horton and Tez Johnson. Obviously, they all aren’t equal but that’s a list of fast guys that can stretch the field drafted after 30. There are others as well that can maybe do it including Prather. The frustration from me is it isn’t one guy that they missed on. There were lots of options to fill that role.

You believe 14 or more guys drafted in this draft could push to start against guys that have already shown they are legit NFL talents?   I guess this draft was better at WR than I thought.

[Mikie2times]

1 minute ago, thenorthremembers said:

You believe 14 or more guys drafted in this draft could push to start against guys that have already shown they are legit NFL talents?   I guess this draft was better at WR than I thought.

Do you hold our defensive picks to this standard?