Beane Ensures Competition For Camp

[Night Train]

https://overthecap.com/free-agency/buffalo-bills

So I was interested in seeing how many moves were made from mid-March, when FA started. I counted 25 players who were extended, signed or re-signed. Then came the draft, followed by mini-camp, camp invites/tryouts. Almost up to 90 for camp.

That's a lot of new contracts for a team that seemed really up against it cap wise in early March. Many short term deals is a result of the cap age with a franchise QB contract. Yet those short term deals help alleviate long term cap issues. A lot of players will be 1-2 year contract workers/mercenaries until they end their playing days. It's how every team operates these days if they have their QB and are playoff contenders over teams that are rebuilding. The FA market is always flooded with players needing work every year. Ex. They will sign/re-sign many DT's again next off-season.

Players still need to earn their roster spot but quality competition is assured over just finding bodies for most positions.

The key IMO with this squad is the schemes. McDermott calling the D would lead me to believe there will be a noticeable change in D playcalling. Dorsey has A LOT of new faces all over the O and should be changing many calls to improve and also remove a large load off the back of his star QB.

It's not predicting success or failure, since it's May and only narratives can be expressed. The time of year where no one is wrong and positions are repeated ad nauseam.

Bring on camp for all to start observing what this team can actually do. Who are the good contributing players, the backups and pretenders. Actual results in the fall answers all the questions.

Watching.

[Woodman]

Re: Beane Ensures Competition For Camp

Competition has been accomplished.

We need Dorsey and his offensive assistants to be creative enough to take full advantage.

We need to play smart.

We need a master of when and when not to use our timeouts to teach McDermott the difference.

******************

Do we need a few fat contracts to be reworked?

I think so.

[ParanoidAndroid]

Re: Beane Ensures Competition For Camp

McD has a history of attacking with his LBs much more often.

Milano and Klein have both had success when they are attacking the ball.

[YardRat]

Re: Beane Ensures Competition For Camp

I'll believe the defense will be different when I see it.

[notacon]

Re: Beane Ensures Competition For Camp

Churn and burn is the reality of today’s NFL.

Every year the Bills roster changes by around 25%. The final 2022 roster has exactly 24.5% of the 53 players on the active roster opening day no longer on the team.

51% of the present 84 man roster (including draft picks and UFA) are not under contract past this season. Only 43 are.

With that said, the final 53 man roster for 2023 is fairly easy to see taking shape. Here is the full roster as of 5/6/23. The suspected final 53 are in bold....

QB	Josh Allen	EDGE	Von Miller
	Matt Barkley		Greg Rousseau
	Kyle Allen		Boogie Basham
RB	James Cook		A.J. Epenesa
	Nyheim Hines		Shaq Lawson
	Damien Harris		Kingsley Jonathan
	Latavius Murray		Kendal Vickers
	Jordan Mims		Kameron Cline
FB	Reggie Gilliam	DT	Ed Oliver
WR	Stefon Diggs		DaQuan Jones
	Gabe Davis		Jordon Phillips
	Khalil Shakir		Poona Ford
	Deonte Harty		Tim Settle
	Trent Sherfield		Eli Ankou
	Justin Shorter		Brandin Bryant
	Dezmon Patmon		Cortez Broughton
	KeeSean Johnson		DJ Dale
	Isaiah Coulter	LB	Matt Milano
	Jalen Wayne		Terrel Bernard
	Tyrell Shavers		Tyrel Dodson
TE	Dawson Knox		AJ Klein
	Dalton Kincaid		Tyler Matakevich
	Quintin Morris		Dorian Williams
	Zach Davidson		Baylon Spector
OL	Dion Dawkins		James Paterson
	Mitch Morse	CB	Tre' White
	Spencer Brown		Kaiir Elam
	Ryan Bates		Taron Johnson
	Connor McGovern		Dane Jackson
	O'Cyrus Torrence		Siran Neal
	Ike Boettger		Chistian Benford
	David Quessenberry		Ja'Marcus Ingram
	David Edwards		Alex Austin
	Greg Mancz		Kyler McMichael
	Tommy Doyle	S	Micah Hyde
	Alec Anderson		Jordon Poyer
	Ryan Van Demark		Taylor Rapp
	Kevin Jarvis		Damar Hamlin
	Nick Broeker		Cam Lewis
	Richard Gouraige		Jared Mayden
			Zayne Anderson
		K	Tyler Bass
		P	Sam Martin
		LS	Reid Ferguson

Yes, there will be some differences for a few players on the bubble. There will also probably be some additional FA signing as teams trim their roster. But, all-in-all, most likely (but not cast in stone) Poona Ford was probably the last FA signing almost assured a roster spot.

Many others will end up on the practice squad.

What is also very interesting are Beane’s comments about “avoiding going all-in for one year and then having to tear down”.

Bills General Manager Brandon Beane says he’s building for sustained success in Buffalo, and not a team with a one-year peak followed by a deep valley.

Beane told Jim Rome that tactics like trading future draft picks or pushing significant cap space to future years come with a price, and the Bills don’t want to pay that price.

“There are some moves that we could do that would say we’re all in for this year and then have a tear down,” Beane said, via the Buffalo News. “We’ve been diligent with the cap to try to avoid that type of situation. It’s not easy, especially when you have a top 10 quarterback, great receiver, Tre White, Von [Miller] and some of these guys. Ultimately, we think we’ve got a plan to continue to go for it year after year and hopefully we can find a way to pull that title home for Buffalo sooner rather than later.”

The Rams, who won the Super Bowl after the 2021 season but collapsed in 2022, are an obvious example of a team that went all-in and then started tearing it down. The Chiefs, who won the Super Bowl this year, are an example of a team built for sustained success. Beane clearly would rather follow the Chiefs’ model.

I don’t want to get into a pointless, divisive discussion about Edmunds, but how Beane handled that situation is indicative of the ‘let’s maintain for the long term’ mindset that will serve the team well.

Edmunds was the first high profile, young player that the Bills lost in FA in the Beane era. It’s the first high profile player they drafted and developed that they lost in FA after the rookie contract ran out. Harrison Philips was the closest, but he was not really a “high profile” loss.

Beane did not panic when Edmunds was lost. He extended Matt Milano for two additional years at a team friendly price. Salaries are going up every year and this extension will look like a bargain as every year goes by.

He signed Taylor Rapp, which signals that the Bills will probably use dime defenses more than in the past. Training camp competition is a good thing and I suspect that the LB spot opposite Milano will not be fully determined until after they see what they have in both Bernard in his second year and the newest draftee, Dorian Williams.

Instead of two LB’s getting 80%+ of defensive snap counts, they will probably be platooned (mostly opposite Milano) more depending on the situation. With a higher percentage of dime....maybe as much as 8-10% (up from the 3% in 2022).

In retrospect, it was a sound decision, not only based on the cap situation, but as I detailed in this post, a sound roster management decision too. It is irresponsible to maintain two players in the same position with both being within the top 10 AVG/Y salary.

As I said in that post...

That is why the 14 positions that have multiple players on each team (excluding single player positions....LS, FB, K & P) for 32 teams (448 instances) only FOUR teams have two players within the top 10 AVG/Y salary for the same position...

Miami - CB - #3 & #6
Baltimore - CB - #4 & #10
LAC - EDGE - #2 & #5
Wash - DL - #3 & #8.


Whenever an individual player performs at an extremely high level...he is going to get PAID. And a team can only have so many highly paid players, and in particular they should have only one highly paid player (defined as in the top 10 in AVG/Y within that position) within each position group.

That requires the intermixing of draft picks, relatively low cost FA’s, and moving on from highly paid vets as they age.

Mitch Morse, Micah Hyde, Jordon Poyer, Da Quan Jones are probably the next vets to leave the team. Then Stefon Diggs, Tre’ White and Dawson Knox are unlikely to see another Bills contract beyond their present one.

Would anyone be surprised if Diggs is released or traded after the 2024 season? There would still be a huge dead app hit after 2024 of $22M, but still a $5M cap savings. He’s owed no guaranteed money after this season.

The NFL does in fact stand for Not For Long.

[notacon]

Re: Beane Ensures Competition For Camp

Another glaring reality and a direct refutation of the “group think” of way too many supposed “fans” here....as evidenced by the roster management that has taken place.....

That the defense was soooooooo terrible.

I have been one of the few (possibly only) poster that has recognized and given reams of solid evidence that the OFFENSE was the problem last season, and needs changes galore. The defense....not so much.

Now that we are at the stage that the 2023 roster is clearly within sight....my predictions and observations have been validated 100% by the actions of the Bills and Beane.

25% of the opening day roster from 2022 is gone. Almost ALL from the offense. Only two players from 2022 opening day roster from the defense are no longer on the team.

Tremaine Edmunds and Jaquan Johnson.

Edmunds is gone because his value soared because he is undeniably one of the best LB’s in the NFL and is getting paid accordingly. As described above, smart roster management precludes two highly paid players for any position. I wrote about this fact back in mid March, after Chicago signed Edmunds for $18 MILION AVG/Y.

Jaquan Johnson, because of the rash on injuries at safety, got the most playing time on defense since he was drafted in 2019. He went from 0% of defensive snaps in 2019 and 2020 to 9% in 2021 and then 21.5% in 2022.

He was shown to not be worthy of an extension. He signed a one year contract with the Raiders for the vet minimum.

Of the five position groups on defense (EDGE, DT, LB, CB & S) three will have a new addition, with probably three new faces. Poona Ford at DT, Dorian Williams at LB, and Taylor Rapp at S.

On the offensive side, it’s a completely different story. Of the five position groups (QB, RB, WR, TE and OL) every one of them are seeing changes. Leave out QB (despite the fact that the backup is changing), the remaining four major portion groups are all seeing MAJOR rebuilds.

In fact, assuming the roster is as projected above (again, leaving out QB) which is reasonable if not almost assured, out of the twelve new faces on the 53 man roster, NINE (75%) are on offense.

The changes to the defense are relatively minor. And much, much less than the remake of the defense after the 2021 season that saw the loss (all because of the Bills decisions...not because any of them got an outsized FA offer like Edmunds) Star Lotulelei, Jerry Hughes, Levi Wallace, Mario Addison and Vernon Butler who all had significant playing time in 2020 and the additions of Von Miller (huge FA signing) Daquan Jones, Tim Settle, Jordon Phillips, Shaq Lawson, Kaiir Elam and Christian Benford.

Yes, the Bills coaches and GM have recognized what too many “fans” elected to ignore. The route to a Super Bowl is through improving the OFFENSE with he addition of two RB’s, three WR’s, three O-lineman and a first round TE.

[swiper]

Re: Beane Ensures Competition For Camp

Clueless (above) blathering. One person continues to be a legend in his own failing head (only there). Let's tell him the facts:

In 2020 the Bills were ranked 2nd in offense (LINK) and 6th in defense (LINK). Fact is the offense was better than the defense compared to the rest of the league. Period. No one can argue that.

The team purged itself of the most over-rated MLB it has ever had (LINK). So they start anew.

[notacon]

Re: Beane Ensures Competition For Camp

Clueless (above) blathering. One person continues to be a legend in his own failing head (only there). Let's tell him the facts:

In 2020 the Bills were ranked 2nd in offense (LINK) and 6th in defense (LINK). Fact is the offense was better than the defense compared to the rest of the league. Period. No one can argue that.

The team purged itself of the most over-rated MLB it has ever had (LINK). So they start anew.

Except the FACT that the offense underwhelming performances when it counted the most, are why the Bills lost every single game last season.

Every. Single. Loss.

In every regular season loss, the Bills offense had the ball in their hands with an excellent chance to win. They FAILED every time.

In the playoff game, the OFFENSE was dismally BAD, scoring only ten points.

As I have accurately pointed out several times, scoring only 10 points in ANY NFL game is an almost assured LOSS.

The facts....

In the 2022 regular season, there were SEVENTY ONE teams that scored 10 points or less. Their W-L record in those games?.....

2-69.

Week #11….NE 10 – NYJ 3.
Week #13….BAL 10 – DEN 9.

Playoffs is even more stark. Since 2000 (including 2022 so far) there have been 45 teams that have scored 10 or less points (excluding Super Bowls). Their record??...

0-45.


The last time a team scored 10 or less points in a playoff game and won??

1997. PITT 7 – NE 6.

The Super Bowl is even MORE stark….in ALL 56 Super Bowls, one ream has scored 10 or less points SIXTEEN times. Their record????...If you are paying attention you guessed it…..

0-16.

The Bills defense has performed extremely well...to an elite level. The offense...not so much.

The FACT is that the Bills professionals actually running the team agree with my assessment as evidence by the massive overhaul of all of the offensive positions groups, except QB), and hardly any to the defense.

No one can argue that.


You have no idea what you are talking about.

[Mace]

Re: Beane Ensures Competition For Camp

I'll believe the defense will be different when I see it.

Yeah...me too. The term competion is relative to who is competing. They basically added a te to take snaos from a wr anddon't have a viable mlb unless they take snaps away from a cb and use 3 lb's more. Added more recycles ol with a gem that they won't get the most of because they won't use Bates at lg but will patch him at backup center until they rent more 1 year fa's.

Ii'm dubious.

McD is not going to start a rookie mlb now.