Yeah. I'm not going to disparage a fan for having high expectations or even believing all the moves the team makes are great. That's up to them. I just prefer to consider all sides of it and to have them prove that they are better than what their recent past or their value says they are.
Take Kaiir Elam. I have no problem that we traded for him because he's a former first-round pick and he was cheap. However, there was a reason he was cheap. Buffalo essentially only played him when the Bills had to and he struggled in both Buffalo's zone-heavy scheme and also when asked to play man-to-man.
https://www.si.com/nfl/bills/news/draft-cb-brandon-beane-takes-blame-first-round-failure-kaiir-elam
Giving him a shot is not the problem. Having to rely on him while we're giving him a shot is a problem. It's kind of like having to put Andrew Booth out there last year. If Diggs and Revel were healthy and Elam was only fighting with the rookie for third corner, it's a good trade. However, with Diggs out for part of the season and Revel possibly getting off to a slow start because of his injury, there's a good chance that Elam is going to have to play no matter how bad he is.
I like what we saw from Josh Butler when he stepped in, but he's also coming off injury. After that, all we've got if Elam fails is Carson (who played poorly as a rookie), Pride, Kemon Hall, some player named Barcoo and our UDFAs (Childress, Clark, Harmon and Smith Jr.).
Maybe that's why the DBs were our highest-paid UDFAs this year. Even if Revel is ready and we have he and Bland out there, we've got to find an effective third corner from Elam and the rest. In fact, in Eberflus's scheme, nickel corner is a very important position.