HappyDays

I'd want to see one more source on this but those details are insane if true.

I love the way he effortlessly plucks the ball out of the air. A big focus of our past two offseasons has been adding pass catchers that, well, catch passes.

Legal troubles aside, the league's personal conduct policy doesn't care how the he said/she said narrative turns out. He's at a club in the wee hours of Monday morning getting into an altercation that turns into a police report, just weeks after causing a multi-car accident while drag racing. Honestly wouldn't be totally surprised if the league makes an example out of him and slaps him with like a 10 game suspension. Maybe more. There have been too many recent occurrences of NFL players involved in high speed incidents and this latest legal problem of his is the cherry on top.

The coaching is what changed the most since then IMO. No reason they shouldn't have won the Super Bowl that year. They still had Tyreek Hill and the league hadn't caught up to the revolutionary offense spearheaded by a QB doing things no one had ever done before. They just needed their defense to not get dominated and they simply couldn't do it. Since then they have had their one cornerstone player in Chris Jones. Everyone else has been a rotating cast of different characters. The one constant from then to now is Steve Spagnuolo. Pretty clearly the best defensive coach in the league IMO and has a knack for taking his unit to another level in the playoffs. Honestly he might have been more responsible for their Super Bowl win last year than Andy Reid was.

Yeah they fired their DC Bob Sutton after a string of embarrassing defensive losses that year culminating in that AFCCG loss. Since Spagnuolo took over they have had at the very least an above average defense which always raises its level in the playoffs, and of course was elite this past season. That's my point though. They changed the defensive coach and saw an immediate turnaround. Elite coaching staffs make the GM look smarter by default. It's the newest iteration of the dynasty Patriots, unfortunately.

I've never once watched a Chiefs game and felt like Karlaftis popped off the screen. Solid player but him getting double digit sacks is more a function of coaching IMO (and being next to the best DT in the league doesn't hurt). Similarly I don't expect L'Jarius Sneed to continue being an all-pro caliber CB in Tennessee. It's hard for me to know for sure if Veach is just inherently better at drafting defensive talent than Beane, or if their defensive coaching just does a much better job getting the most out of that talent.

Nick Korte at OTC figured out why we and the 49ers lost out on a 3rd round comp pick: Kind of a confusing article but basically the NFL considered restructured contracts to be new contracts for the purposes of calculating comp picks. Nick points out that this doesn't really make any sense but that's what happened. He also used this additional info to update the projected comp pick formula for next year and there are no changes. So the current projection is still that we will get a 4th and a 5th round comp pick next year.

I'm not giving up on Elam yet. He has had game changing interceptions in three games despite very limited playing time - one against the Chiefs in the regular season, and two in the playoffs against the Steelers and Dolphins. So he arguably has more game changing plays in the playoffs than any other defensive player on the roster, which is kind of sad, but in any case I don't want to give up on that kind of talent. I suspect with John Butler moving on and no major CB investments that the coaching staff is planning to give him a real shot at winning a starting job. At worst he is likely to be our #3 IMO.

He's practically a lock IMO. The only player to receive guaranteed money and not make the roster under this regime was OJ Howard. Also we used 4 void years on Smoot's contract. It is his spot to lose.

Same exact coaching staff is back so I very much doubt it, but I'll keep my fingers crossed. This coaching staff has a history of choking in the playoffs when we have a lead. They don't finish. Eventually you just have to accept that's who they are. The main difference between us and KC is that on the critical play of the game, they don't have a miscommunication between their special teams coach and their kicker. They don't leave their opponent's best defensive player 1v1. In those critical moments they are completely buttoned up, and that's where we fall behind more than anything.

I know that play has been re-litigated to death but I'm still mostly upset at our coaching staff for leaving Chris Jones 1v1 on a designed shot play. We got the coverage we wanted, it was a TD waiting to happen, Allen just needed another half second. These small details in critical moments is why we can't get over the hump and that falls on coaching.

You know what makes me feel better? Imagining that we took Van Pran-Granger in the 4th and Ray Davis in the 5th. If we had done it in that order I'll admit I'd have zero complaints.

This is why character does matter in the draft process: That's from Bob McGinn's scouting notes from last year.

Yes like I said the 5th year option gave us an extra two months to negotiate with him or finagle the minor details. You're saying without that the deal would have just totally fallen through? It's not like we gave him a record breaking extension that required weeks of sleepless nights. I would guess the terms were mostly set a few months before the agreement was officially reached.

When he trades up a couple spots yes I believe him. I don't remember him saying that about Rousseau for example, or over selling the Coleman pick as someone they were specifically targeting. One thing Beane always has been steadfast on is that he follows his board. I know that's true just based on his actions. If his last player in a certain tier is still hanging around he will try to trade up slightly for them (Elam, Kincaid, attempting to trade up for Bishop). If he has several players at equal value in that tier he will stick and pick. If that tier is wiped out on his board he will try to trade down.